Happy International Day for Biological Diversity! This year’s theme is Invasive Alien Species.
I confess when I read that, I had a totally Men in Black flashback and was visualizing giant alien bugs. [twitches]
Invasive alien species include animals, plants and other organisms that are not native to an ecosystem, which have the potential to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health. So I guess space aliens would fall under that category.
We have been avoiding dealing with our own alien invasion. The neighbors planted ivy and let it spread all over their backyard and this past year it finally crossed over the fence onto our side. Joy.
Don’t blame us for the vines on this side of the fence – it’s 2 feet in on their property and they are supposed to be maintaining this side of it, but they don’t.
With the rise in copperhead (snake) sightings already this year, the ivy is a danger to us and to the already existing ecosystem.
One of the internal conflicts I have had is the use of herbicides. I would love to be able to get rid of the ivy without having to use chemicals but I am finally realizing that may not be possible. [light bulb flips on] It had not occurred to me that sometimes using the big guns is justified when saving an ecosystem from an invasive alien species. It is sort of shocking to me that the green thing to do could be to actually poison something, you know?
Beginning today, we will do whatever it takes to prevent the ivy from further invading and taking over our own personal ecosystem.
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Greetings,
My name is Barbara O’ Brien and my blogging at The Mahablog, Crooks and Liars, AlterNet, and elsewhere on the progressive environmental and political blogophere has earned me the notoriety of being a panelist at the Yearly Kos Convention and a featured guest blogger at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, DC. I’ve had lunch with Bill Clinton and appeared on MSNBC’s Countdown With Keith Olbermann. I’ve been profiled in the Washington Post and interviewed by Brian Lamb on CSPAN’s Washington Journal.
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So drop by for a visit at http://www.maacenter.org. Give is a link on your site to help spread this important information. Blogroll us, and we’ll blogroll you back. I’m also available for guest blogging on your site.
Thanks,
Barbara O’Brien