Saturday, March 28, 2009

Invasive Species

It is fundamentally horrific at the extent that invasive species are taking over so much of the uncultivated landscape in the CRD. I drove past some more nice parks that should be providing us with the quasi wild landscapes and are choked out with blackberries of English Ivy.

I know a lot of people would like to see a ban on all herbicides, but I think we should go out with Roundup and hit ALL the English Ivy in the region. Smash it back and then work to keep the areas clean of the invasive plants. We can not let it continue as it is if we want to have any semblance of the local wildlife.

300 000 people live in the area and only a few hundred are putting any energy putting into dealing with the place we live in. I would love it if each person put in five to ten hours into this per year.

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My kids want me to do the Earth Hour thing tonight, so I guess we will and see how low we can go.

3 comments:

Kathreen said...

We chainsaw our share of English Ivy each year but we have resisted Roundup....and I hope you're joking about chemical warfare against invasive species.

Bernard said...

I am not joking, I believe they are an important part of the mix in dealing with invasive species

Anonymous said...

I'm convinced if we did absolutely nothing, in a few decades if not a few years much of our region would consist solely of Himalayan Blackberry, ivy and broom. And perhaps one of those three would choke out the other two eventually.