Thanks to the Times of India World Desk for the Headline
Seems timely to revisit the choice that was made in Florida at the turn of last century to introduce a non-native tree into the swamplands in order to drain the land and allow development.
Today those invasive trees cover 400,000 acres of native sawgrass marshes and have led to significant changes to the ecological balance. The Melaleuca tree uses vast amounts of water in comparison to the Sawgrass which actually had a natural ebb and flow with it’s surroundings. The land needing an ebb and flow of water. Added to that the Melaleuca’s tree wafer thin and highly combustible bark and there is a double whammy of fire and water environmental damage, not to mention it’s cascading seeds and darkening canopy which prevents native species from thriving or even surviving.
The current cost of managing this invasive species is mounting and has to be met from Government resources. The use of biological methods such as introducing the Melaleuca Snout Beetle and the Melaleuca psyllid from Australia to reduce the tree’s ability to propagate have been moderately successful. Basically however the timebomb was set two hundred years ago without understanding the total picture and the ecology.
Let’s hope we learn from it.
Namaste and Thank You for Reading.🙏
thenotsomightyom 