Weedwar.orgFrequently Asked Questions
Q: What is an invasive weed?
A: A weed is just an undesirable plant. A weed is invasive if
it is not native to an area and it causes or is likely to cause
economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.
Q: Where do Alaska's invasive weeds come
from?
A: Most of Alaska's invasive weeds are native to Europe and Asia but not
North America. An important reason for this is that there are
large areas of Europe and Asia that are very similar in climate and
geography to Alaska. The plants of these regions are thus
perfectly suited to thrive here when removed from their natural
enemies in their native habitats.
Q: Alaska's invasive plants
don't come from Southern
Hemisphere or North America?
A: The Southern Hemisphere has very little vegetated land area in the
colder regions, and so its plants are less competitive and diverse
than those in the Northern Hemisphere. Canada, on the other
hand, has many of the same native plants as Alaska, and so they
wouldn't be considered invasive.
Q: Isn't this just Nature taking
its course?
A: The introduction and spread of noxious, invasive plants is nearly always
the result of artificial introduction, not natural. Whether
transported back to Alaska as whole plants by well-intentioned
tourists, hitchhiking as seed or root segments on shoes, tires, boat
hulls, or aircraft or through internet retail options, invasive
weeds are ending up in Alaska in ways that Nature never intended..
Q: Species move around all the
time. Why should human introductions be considered separate
from Nature?
A: Spread of a species is highly dependent on introductions to get the
species to a new place, and disturbance to create space for the
species to take hold. Humans create disturbances when
building and maintaining roads, trails, infrastructure, material
extraction, and other activities. Because there are so many
people, we have the ability to create larger disturbances that
happen more frequently than the resources we depend on have adapted
to. Introductions of a species are facilitated by humans due
to technologies such as planes, trains, automobiles, boats and the
internet which allow us to accidentally or on purpose introduce species at a much larger scale/frequency than is natural. For
these reasons, more species with invasive characteristics have a
chance to take root in Alaska.
Q: Don't we all have dandelions and
chickweed. What's the big deal?
A: Dandelions and chickweed are weeds and they are nuisances.
However, they do not have the ability noxious invasive plants have
to cause tremendous losses to the economy, ecology and environment.
The type of impact that we are trying to avoid includes loss of
salmon and moose habitat, reduction of property value, reduced
agricultural capabilities and destruction of native Alaska species
of plants and wildlife.
Q: Are you saying that any plant
that isn't native to Alaska should be targeted and eradicated?
A: Not at all. Non-native doesn't always mean invasive. In
fact, more often than not, introduced plants are not noxious or
invasive in the Alaskan ecosystem, for various reasons.
Caution needs to be used, however, when considering purchase or
transport of plants from outside Alaska, avoiding those that have
shown invasive tendencies in areas with similar climate conditions.
Many of the Lower 48 states have learned very hard lessons that we
in Alaska can benefit from..