The botanical imperialism of weeds and crops
January 31, 2024 5:48 PM Subscribe
The botanical imperialism of weeds and crops: how alien plant species on the First Fleet changed Australia. It wasn’t just colonists and convicts who invaded Australia in 1788 – invasive plant species arrived too.
Where to start...
Just in my local region we have Mimosa bush, Candle bush, Neem and African Mahogany trees, Mission grass (perennial and annual), Gamba grass (extreme fire hazard, well beyond the capacity of native flora to handle), Humidicola grass, Calopo vine (a real bastard to control as the seeds can remain dormant and viable for more than a decade in the soil, no small feat in a tropical monsoon climate), etc.
The list is already long and getting longer. Technically landowners/administrators are supposed to control them, but in practice it now mostly token at best. People are basically just giving up as it becomes overwhelming and resorting to simply clearing their land or just ignoring it beyond immediately around their houses for fire control.
The property I am on is still predominantly healthy native forest but the weeds are now at the entire boundary and working their way inward. I am in talks with the owner about how to manage or adapt to the rapidly rising intrusion of weeds. But it is quite clear that there are no easy or cheap or permanent answers to that problem. When I first got here it was genuinely pristine, and I was diligent in promptly controlling any small infestations. Now it just breaks my heart to see. Getting so I don't even enjoy walking around it anymore. Weeds flooding in from literally every direction.
I was getting a weed identified a few years back at the local herbarium, and quietly, off the record, asked the botanist if we had lost the war against weeds, and they said, yes, all we can now do is slow their spread and hope DNA tech can come up with something that can be precisely targeted to specific species on a large scale, but they were not hopeful.
The north of Australia is going to look very different in a few decades, independent of climate change.
posted by Pouteria at 4:31 AM on February 1 [5 favorites]
Just in my local region we have Mimosa bush, Candle bush, Neem and African Mahogany trees, Mission grass (perennial and annual), Gamba grass (extreme fire hazard, well beyond the capacity of native flora to handle), Humidicola grass, Calopo vine (a real bastard to control as the seeds can remain dormant and viable for more than a decade in the soil, no small feat in a tropical monsoon climate), etc.
The list is already long and getting longer. Technically landowners/administrators are supposed to control them, but in practice it now mostly token at best. People are basically just giving up as it becomes overwhelming and resorting to simply clearing their land or just ignoring it beyond immediately around their houses for fire control.
The property I am on is still predominantly healthy native forest but the weeds are now at the entire boundary and working their way inward. I am in talks with the owner about how to manage or adapt to the rapidly rising intrusion of weeds. But it is quite clear that there are no easy or cheap or permanent answers to that problem. When I first got here it was genuinely pristine, and I was diligent in promptly controlling any small infestations. Now it just breaks my heart to see. Getting so I don't even enjoy walking around it anymore. Weeds flooding in from literally every direction.
I was getting a weed identified a few years back at the local herbarium, and quietly, off the record, asked the botanist if we had lost the war against weeds, and they said, yes, all we can now do is slow their spread and hope DNA tech can come up with something that can be precisely targeted to specific species on a large scale, but they were not hopeful.
The north of Australia is going to look very different in a few decades, independent of climate change.
posted by Pouteria at 4:31 AM on February 1 [5 favorites]
Human habitation (by "advanced" or "non-traditional" societies, that have what Jared Diamond called a "food-production package") transforms the physical geographies of big chunks of continents. Wiping out the existing ecology is just the start. It happened in East Asia, Europe, and the parts of Eurasia in between so long ago that nobody remembers what things looked like before (settled, agricultural) people came.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:05 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:05 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
This favourable comparison with the West Indies ignores the use of convict labour in producing sugar, and foreshadows the advent of “blackbirding”, a euphemism for the abduction or coercion of Melanesian workers. Blackbirding was introduced in Queensland canefields in 1863 as penal transportation ended and cheap convict labour became unavailable.Was sugar ever not a
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:21 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
Aardvark Cheeselog: anther data point in the unfreeze labor: Haiti had real trouble making money off of sugar after their revolution because people actually wanted to be paid for their work.
As to the article, I've never seen prickly pear grow like that that. For as much as people talk about native Australian flora and fauna being deadly, they never seen too talk about how some invasive species really did a number to the continent. For those in the know, did prickly pear out compete native cactuses or just take over areas without substantial plant cover?
posted by Hactar at 11:25 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
As to the article, I've never seen prickly pear grow like that that. For as much as people talk about native Australian flora and fauna being deadly, they never seen too talk about how some invasive species really did a number to the continent. For those in the know, did prickly pear out compete native cactuses or just take over areas without substantial plant cover?
posted by Hactar at 11:25 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
For those in the know, did prickly pear out compete native cactuses or just take over areas without substantial plant cover?
Hactar, there are no cacti native to Australia. Cacti are only native to North and South America, with the sole exception being Rhipsalis baccifera which is also native to Africa and Sri Lanka.
Australia does have native succulents though.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:19 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]
Hactar, there are no cacti native to Australia. Cacti are only native to North and South America, with the sole exception being Rhipsalis baccifera which is also native to Africa and Sri Lanka.
Australia does have native succulents though.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:19 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]
This article made me curious about the diets of indigenous people. What did they eat before Western colonists showed up? What do they eat now?
posted by eirias at 6:15 AM on February 2
posted by eirias at 6:15 AM on February 2
eirias, there's an overview of tradition Australian foodstuffs here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_tucker#Types_of_foods
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:40 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_tucker#Types_of_foods
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:40 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]
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