03-07-2008, 01:52 PM
I find myself running amok here in Hawaii of the eco-crowd who's all worried about invasive plants and is all fired up about chopping down all the eucalyptus, etc. We're way past that point, in much more dire circumstances, and everything green, native or not is precious.
Hows that for starts?
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Weeell...I guess I'm one of the "eco-crowd" - and it feels good to think we're big enough to be a crowd
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Invasive species are now the number one threat to Hawai'i's ecosystems. Intact native Hawaiian plant communities are extrordinarily diverse, with many niches, while alien species tend to form monotypic stands. When you go into a reasonably healthy native forest you find lots of different plants that have adapted to grow together from low growing ground plants all the way through understory and epiphytes. In places dominated by invasives you find....well, pretty much just invasives. They are very good at excluding any competition. I say a healthy native forest here would undoubtedly do a much better job at absorbing Co2. In order to prevent our remaining forests from being overrun by invasive plants and animals I believe invasive species management is a worthy and neccessary goal. (For a scary example of alien takeover check out what happened to Tahiti.) So does this mean we should just go mow down all the eucalyptus on the Hamakua coast all at once? I don't know - probably not. It's hard to grow a native forest from nothing on degraded land, especially in our lifetimes. It's not like planting a cornfield. Also, alien weeds will quickly replace whatever you remove if you don't get something else established there first. I do agree that a more environmentally sound approach should be taken in land use planning.
Nalu Mama, I like the way you think. For 8 years I had an "alternative toilet" and used poop mixed with liberal amounts of sawdust that I composted for at least 1 year on my gardens. After that amount of time it made beautiful soil and didn't have an odor. There's an awesome book I found called Humanure[:0] that has a lot of good info about using...well, poop for the petunias and potatoes.
Mitzi
Hows that for starts?
[/quote]
Weeell...I guess I'm one of the "eco-crowd" - and it feels good to think we're big enough to be a crowd![
] Invasive species are now the number one threat to Hawai'i's ecosystems. Intact native Hawaiian plant communities are extrordinarily diverse, with many niches, while alien species tend to form monotypic stands. When you go into a reasonably healthy native forest you find lots of different plants that have adapted to grow together from low growing ground plants all the way through understory and epiphytes. In places dominated by invasives you find....well, pretty much just invasives. They are very good at excluding any competition. I say a healthy native forest here would undoubtedly do a much better job at absorbing Co2. In order to prevent our remaining forests from being overrun by invasive plants and animals I believe invasive species management is a worthy and neccessary goal. (For a scary example of alien takeover check out what happened to Tahiti.) So does this mean we should just go mow down all the eucalyptus on the Hamakua coast all at once? I don't know - probably not. It's hard to grow a native forest from nothing on degraded land, especially in our lifetimes. It's not like planting a cornfield. Also, alien weeds will quickly replace whatever you remove if you don't get something else established there first. I do agree that a more environmentally sound approach should be taken in land use planning.
Nalu Mama, I like the way you think. For 8 years I had an "alternative toilet" and used poop mixed with liberal amounts of sawdust that I composted for at least 1 year on my gardens. After that amount of time it made beautiful soil and didn't have an odor. There's an awesome book I found called Humanure[:0] that has a lot of good info about using...well, poop for the petunias and potatoes.
Mitzi
Uluhe Design
Native Landscape Design
uluhedesign@yahoo.com
Native Landscape Design
uluhedesign@yahoo.com