The New Nature by Tim Low

Author:Tim Low
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9781760143459
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

‘Native gardening’ might have helped the environment had it usurped other forms of gardening. What it did instead was bring more plants onto the market – without taking any away. The pool of invasive species grew. Fortunately problems usually ensue only where gardens adjoin bushland. In those settings we really need gardens full of non-invasive plants. It matters less where they come from. In Feral Future I say that ‘benign azaleas and roses are better than weedy wattles’. A true native garden should carry only local native – indigenous – plants, produced from local seed. It’s a worthy goal for those with the time to try it. Gardens of Australian plants should really be called national gardens. They often look delightful, but we should not imbue them with virtues they don’t possess.

The last six chapters have looked at changing distributions from four angles. There are self-spread immigrants, hitchhikers, releases and escapees. What emerges is a complicated picture of change. The new populations don’t fit neatly into our preconceived notions of native and exotic. How should we define them? Where an insurmountable barrier has been crossed – a desert or a sea – ‘exotic’ is usually the right word. Lord Howe Island now has exotic lizards, frogs, insects, spiders and plants. Some of these newcomers threaten rare island species, and Australia has failed in its obligations to this World Heritage site by not keeping them out. The lizards (Lampropholis delicata) in particular could destroy unique insects if they reach the densities achieved in my garden. As Laurence Mound complains, ‘in terms of trading patterns, the Island is effectively an eastern suburb of Sydney and the resultant absence of quarantine restrictions sits uncomfortably with its World Heritage status’. Proper quarantine isn’t applied because the island is not considered foreign, although foreign it is. Western Australia’s approach is more sensible. Quarantine checkpoints at Eucla and Kununura keep out organisms from interstate.

But what if the distance moved is small? Macaranga trees (Macaranga tanarius) in Brisbane are busily escaping from gardens; I’ve seen a seedling in a railway cutting, another in an inner-city carpark. With their saucer-sized leaves they dramatically change any forests they invade. Macaranga is native to Brisbane, but only just. It grows naturally on a long ridge that winds down from the west. The escapees I see in local rainforests haven’t spread very far and I baulk at calling them exotic. They probably grew here in the past during wetter climatic times. If so, they don’t fit the World Conservation Union’s definition of alien invader, which excludes reintroductions. Nevertheless I abhor their use in local revegetation projects, which seems careless and unnecessary. But we can keep them out of local forests without labelling them as exotic.

The same goes for tuckeroo (Cupaniopsis anacardioides) around Sydney. Debate rages about whether Sydney’s oldest tuckeroo trees are natural or planted, even though the species clearly belongs in coastal rainforests further north and south. Nowadays it is spreading from gardens into completely new habitats. The koalas around Adelaide also fail the World Conservation Union’s ‘exotic’ test.

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