Even if you’re not an ecologist or an environmentalist, you’ve likely heard of invasive species: Japanese Knotweed, Kudzu, or Zebra Mussels.

How do we define an invasive species? Part of it is that it is “alien,” or “new” to an ecosystem. But by that definition, all of agriculture is composed of alien species.

The other component of an invasive is that it thrives in its new home.

Why are these bad attributes? Species have been moving around the world for billions of years. Why do we need to be protecting our borders now?

As you might have guessed, the concept of invasive was pioneered by herbicide companies like Monsanto—tapping into a nationalist rhetoric to exterminate “others." Current “management” of invasives, statistically speaking, is about herbicide, whether in terrestrial or aquatic ecosystems. It’s very difficult to take any message away from the text aside from an understanding that the paradigm of invasive species is inter-species racism, and is ethically despicable.

Why are these species spreading in the first place?

“Some of today’s ‘worst’ invasive species were intentionally introduced for ecological benefit. Prior to being classified as invasive, state and federal agencies recommended plants like sea buckthorn, bush honeysuckle, and multiflora rose for their usefulness as habitat or food for wildlife. From 1935 through the 1950s, the Soil Conservation Service distributed eighty-five million kudzu seedlings to stabilize eroding slopes in the Southeast and paid landowners $19.75 per hectare to plant the rapidly growing vine. Scotch broom was sold as an ornamental and planted along roadsides and cut banks through the western Unite States during the 1940s and 1950s.” (Page 15 and 16)

Regardless of government intervention contributing to the spread of some of the species we’re now trying to eradicate, in a world with failing natural systems, wouldn’t we enthusiastically greet species that thrive in these changing environments?

Maybe part of our challenge is a tendency to see nature as static and unchanging. A beech, birch forest in New England has always been that way hasn’t it? Well, fifteen thousands years ago (a blink of the eye, evolutionarily), this region was covered by glaciers—so all these species that are here today arrived recently.

What kind of damage are invasive causing? “According to John Kartesz of the Biota of North America Program, there has never been a plant species in North America, (including Hawaii) that has been driven to extinction by the introduction of another plant species” (page 97).

Just as holistic medicine looks at the person as a whole, as opposed to the part of the body experiencing discomfort in isolation, invasives signify a larger shift in an ecosystem. But unlike people, ecosystems don’t have any kind of permanence; a shift in our body’s microbiome can be beneficial or harmful, but the same can’t be said about invasives, as they shift the structure of an ecosystem, transforming it into something else.

I haven’t heard anyone calling for the introduction of foreign species, but what can we do with the species that are already here? How can we work with the black locust?

Some Native Americans, such as a Southern Sierra Miwok, use the term “wilderness” in a disparaging way. There was no wilderness before the Colonists exterminated the Native Americans. Wilderness describes places that have been literally abandoned, even though we’ve introduced countless challenges to these places. Maybe the larger issue here is that almost no one actively tends lands any longer.

In reading the book, I’m reminded of Regenesis Group’s Story of Place process. Invasives call for us to be in deeper relationship with place, as their stories are deeply complex. To understand what invasives are telling us about an ecosystem, we would do well to explore the place’s biological, geological, and social history, as well as tap in to the essence of the place. Maybe invasives are an indicator that we’ve forgotten a place, and call us to re-engage. ( )