I recently attended a conference at the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture on how to prevent, detect, and control "invasive" plants in designated "natural areas" throughout the country. The sponsors of the conference were a combination of doctors, those earning their PHD, and those working in the specialized environmental field of invasive plant control. These people decide how trees and plants are categorized and regulated by government agencies and environmental organizations. The keynote speaker of the two day event kicked it off with a forty five minute speech debunking the contemporary notion that peoples attitudes toward their natural environment reflect their attitudes toward each other. Some environmentalist have compared the preference for native plant restoration and aggressive invasive control with American xenophobic politics and Nazi Germany. The Speaker was clearly offended by the comparison and even went to so far as to make the argument that anthropology and ecology are as different as art and science.He explained how ecologist work with scientific facts based on environmental behavior, anthropologist work with facts based on human behavior and the two disciplines shall never meet. The rest of the conference was filled with speaker after speaker giving detailed examples of how human behavior has impacted their efforts to control "noxious" species in natural areas around the country. The event highlighted the resistance of people in the ecological community to acknowledge human influence. Many well intentioned environmentalist conveniently omit the human aspect when making plans regarding the environment. From municipal leaders to university ecologist, many environmental planners have a hard time dealing with issues regarding human behavior. Human being impact on the environment is extreme, destructive, and hard to control. Humans are intelligent and also have powerful political rights that make them harder to control than plants and animals. A common solution to this by some environmentalist is to deny human influence all together. If they don't acknowledge it, then its not there.
On the one hand I understand the Speakers frustration. No one wants to be labeled an environmental racist, and Hitler comparisons will never help your case one way or the other. I work in urban natural area restoration which is the intersection between ecology and anthropology. I have learned the language of both disciplines and its fascinatingly ironic to me how easily one language translates into the other.I'm not a well respected scientist, and I have not earned a PHD(yet). However, based on my observations, I can draw direct correlations between how human beings and plants are classified and managed in their respective environments.
There are basic plant classifications and criteria that ecologist use to determine which plants are necessary to build a 'sustainable' environment, and which plants are hazardous to the health of the environmental 'community'. I'm fascinated by the similarity in the language used to classify plants and the language used to classify people. Not only is the language similar, the attitudes and actions that support and enforce environmental species control mirror the policies that affect the behavior of humans in the environment. Here are a couple of examples, draw your own conclusions.
Specimen Species:' a plant grown for exhibition or in the open to display its full development as distinguished from one in a border or other planting'. These plants are literally the cream of the crop designed to stand out from the rest. They are usually born and raised in green houses designed to mimic an environment that is perfect for their best development. Although they are designed to physically reflect the best of their species, the environment they are most acclimated to is completely manufactured and remote from the environment of those who develop and live in the natural native environment of species. Native Species: 'is a term to describe plants endemic (indigenous) or naturalized to a given area in geologic time...This includes plants that have developed, occur naturally, or existed for many years in an area... Although some types of plants for these reasons exist only within a very limited range, others can live in diverse areas or by adaptation to different surroundings'. We all are products of our environments, and the evidence of where we come from are reflected in a variety of ways. Some people are so influenced by their environment of origin that it would be hard for them to live anywhere else. Others not only can survive in foreign environments, but take on characteristics that reflect the culture of their adopted environment.
Non Native and Invasive Species: 'An introduced, alien, exotic, non-indigenous, or non-native species, or simply an introduction, is a species living outside its native distributional range, which has arrived there by human activity, either deliberate or accidental... Non-native species can have various effects on the local ecosystem. Introduced species that have a negative effect on a local ecosystem are also known as invasive species... Not all non-native species are considered invasive. Some have no negative effect and can, in fact, be beneficial as an alternative to pesticides in agriculture for example... In some instances the potential for being beneficial or detrimental in the long run remains unknown'. How plants behave in their native environment cant always predict how they behave when they are introduced to a new one. Some plants develop bad reputations(deserved or not) that affect the entire species(for better or worse), humans are no different. We have all heard the rhetoric around people 'invading' the United States bent on exhausting the resources and permanently altering American culture. We are left with the complicated issues of native preference, cultural preservation, diversity, and invasive control.
The next couple of blogs will look closer at the intersection between Ecology and Anthropolgy, and the connections between how each discipline manages their respective species. I believe the two equally influence each other, and we can learn more from acknowledging the points were they meet, instead of the constant interdisciplinary pissing contest environmentalist love to partake in.
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