tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post2644172564041631518..comments2024-03-26T01:02:28.347+11:00Comments on Talking Plants: Invasive plants don't cause extinctions a premature conclusionTalking Plantshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-35164165530606284822013-01-26T08:25:56.201+11:002013-01-26T08:25:56.201+11:00Since posting this story, one of my Sydney corresp...Since posting this story, one of my Sydney correspondents, Rick Kemp, has pointed out quite rightly that vast areas of Australia have been transformed by agriculture and land clearing. The term 'relatively' doesn't really explain what I mean here, which is simply that there are still areas in Australia - albeit mostly those of little economic value (as Rick reminded me) - that we can call wilderness. These areas experiencing only a light touch by humans and largely absent from the UK. Here humans have been crawling over an manipulating, often in very beautiful ways, almost every inch of the land. My Canberra colleague Jim Croft (see above comment) is more concerned with my apparent championing of individual species conservation at the expense of habitats and systems. On that score I should say that my personal view is that we looking after individual species is driven by social not scientific values. That may be OK but we need to be transparent about our reasons, and careful, if we go down that road.<br />TimTalking Plantshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-12317489784204227442013-01-24T08:21:24.444+11:002013-01-24T08:21:24.444+11:00Yes that's my overwhelming personal view as we...Yes that's my overwhelming personal view as well. Species come, species go.<br />TimTalking Plantshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-34795455180350452232013-01-24T08:09:41.083+11:002013-01-24T08:09:41.083+11:00Species extinction is not the only metric of the c...Species extinction is not the only metric of the catastrophe of human assisted invasive species. Competition and habitat degradation destroys environmental values, competition, range exclusion ad population fragmentation erodes the resilience and genetic base of local populations, and the list goes on... Yes, a species cowering in a refuge is still a species, but I would much rather a landscape of it.Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02771667084922742749noreply@blogger.com