> I've kinda had a similar perspective until buckthorn. Buckthorn is essentially eradicating native Big Woods forest, transforming forest that comprises an open understory with high canopies into dense tangles of buckthorn that choke out anything else. It also leads to these boom-bust nitrogen cycles that wreak havoc on the soil.
Buckthorn is the devil's plant. IIRC, it's a hedge plant, and literally turns a forest into an impassible hedge.
> Maybe there's something that could be imported to keep it in check (I recall reading buckthorn has some kind of highly specialized moth or something that eats it in its native range) but regardless of why, it's a problem.
IIRC, they're close to approving something like that for garlic mustard (which kind of does the same thing as buckthorn, except on the forest floor, and often gets bad after you deal with buckthorn). They've had to do a lot of testing to make sure it's very specialized and doesn't cause another invasive pest problem.
Buckthorn is the devil's plant. IIRC, it's a hedge plant, and literally turns a forest into an impassible hedge.
> Maybe there's something that could be imported to keep it in check (I recall reading buckthorn has some kind of highly specialized moth or something that eats it in its native range) but regardless of why, it's a problem.
IIRC, they're close to approving something like that for garlic mustard (which kind of does the same thing as buckthorn, except on the forest floor, and often gets bad after you deal with buckthorn). They've had to do a lot of testing to make sure it's very specialized and doesn't cause another invasive pest problem.