permaculture

["Kirby Fry" <peace@totalaccess.net>]

Claude,

>>  Thanks for that - I sometimes feel quite alone defending our friends the
exotics  <<

Right on!  We shouldn't feel alone, at least not at this site.  Mollison
told me he NEVER takes out a tree unless its absolutely necessary, i.e.
right in the way of earthworks or something that's going to invite the tree
right back in.  He didn't ad, I'll note, "unless it's exotic."

>>  what makes exotics a "problem" and worthy of eradication is that they
are "aggressive" and outcompete the natives"  <<

Ah yes, the no competitors nor predators argument.  We can surely take a bow
for eliminating the diversity that might have once helped keep exotics in
"check."  Also, climate and geological conditions are different than those
of the post glacial retreat which led to the creation of much of the
ecosystems as we understand them to be.  Of course it's going to come back
differently after we clear and burn everything and eradicate the influential
fauna!

>>  My other contention is, even if you spray like hell and use all your
biggest guns to try and eradicate a bug or plant, you'll NEVER get them
all - only two have to survive and they will be two tough S.O.B.'s !  <<

Yes, it's really nothing short of xeno-phobia and ethnic cleansing, and it
always comes back to haunt us.  Take care though, the plant Nazis are on the
march.

Now there are SOME areas where I wince at the effects of introduced species,
like rabbits and cats in Australia.  (see, I'm not an extremist)  Feral cats
in Texas, however, can have at the songbirds as far as I'm concerned,
because most all of our wild cat populations have been wiped out.  Afterall,
it's the birds spreading the seeds of the juniper, Chinese tallow and China
berry.  Why not knock'em back and curtail the encroachment of undesirable
woody species?  (I'm being slightly sarcastic here <g>)

>> I think this discussion really points out the fabled "paradigm shift" we
hear so much about - I read somewhere how the Gaia Theory is as important to
our age as the theory of relativity was to a past one <<

Absolutely, we've flubbed pretty badly as the care takers of the Garden of
Eden - if one buys into that Western-Christian paradigm.  That respecting
the earth isn't practical or that our decisions are better thought out than
those made by natural succession is what got us in trouble in the first
place.


Kirby Fry

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