The age of European high imperialism was characterized by the movement of plants and animals on a historically unprecedented scale. The human migrants who colonized territories around the world ...brought a variety of other species with them, from the crops and livestock they hoped to propagate, to the parasites, invasive plants, and pests they carried unawares, producing a host of unintended consequences that reshaped landscapes around the world. While the majority of histories about the dynamics of these transfers have concentrated on the British Empire, these nine case studies--focused on the Ottoman, French, Dutch, German, and British empires--seek to advance a historical analysis that is comparative, transnational, and interdisciplinary to understand the causes, consequences, and networks of biological exchange and ecological change resulting from imperialism. Contributors: Brett M. Bennett, Semih Celik, Nicole Chalmer, Jodi Frawley, Ulrike Kirchberger, Carey McCormack, Idir Ouahes, Florian Wagner, Samuel Eleazar Wendt, Alexander van Wickeren, Stephanie Zehnle
This article offers a historical framework for understanding changes to human perceptions and efforts to manage invasive alien plants and weeds in South Africa from the mid-nineteenth century until ...the present. The article argues that South African legislation and policy for managing invasive alien plants and weeds has historically been limited because people have held contradictory values about plants, many private land owners have lacked resources and have not been compelled to follow government legislation and because policy has reflected the interests of a small group of farmers or scientific experts who have had limited influence on most private land owners and traditional land users. Successful control efforts often relied on technical expertise that was applied controversially or could be implemented on government land without extensive public consultation or social conflict. The creation of a national framework for invasive alien plants through the Working for Water Programme in 1995 and National Environmental Management of Biodiversity Act (no. 10) of 2004 (NEMBA) has increased public awareness, but the Programme and NEMBA remain limited by many of the same institutional and social constraints that experts and institutions faced in the past. In conclusion, the article draws on history to provide insights to contemporary challenges.
•Historical insights are crucial for improving policies for invasive species.•South African perceptions of invasive alien plants shaped by examples from Cape.•Efforts to control invasive plants in the Cape successful because of local action.•Legislation has been ineffectual because of inability to compel private owners.•National planning should consider regional social uses and values.
Human perceptions of nature and the environment are increasingly being recognised as important for environmental management and conservation. Understanding people's perceptions is crucial for ...understanding behaviour and developing effective management strategies to maintain, preserve and improve biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being. As an interdisciplinary team, we produced a synthesis of the key factors that influence people's perceptions of invasive alien species, and ordered them in a conceptual framework. In a context of considerable complexity and variation across time and space, we identified six broad-scale dimensions: (1) attributes of the individual perceiving the invasive alien species; (2) characteristics of the invasive alien species itself; (3) effects of the invasion (including negative and positive impacts, i.e. benefits and costs); (4) socio-cultural context; (5) landscape context; and (6) institutional and policy context. A number of underlying and facilitating aspects for each of these six overarching dimensions are also identified and discussed. Synthesising and understanding the main factors that influence people's perceptions is useful to guide future research, to facilitate dialogue and negotiation between actors, and to aid management and policy formulation and governance of invasive alien species. This can help to circumvent and mitigate conflicts, support prioritisation plans, improve stakeholder engagement platforms, and implement control measures.
•People's perceptions influence the management of invasive alien species.•In a conceptual framework, we highlight six key factors for better understanding perceptions.•Better understanding of these factors will improve research and governance.
This article examines how invasions within a discrete geographic, cultural, and ecological context disproportionately shaped awareness of invasions in other places. Such “model invasions” have been ...valuable for catalyzing national and international interest in biological invasion since the 1980s. Specifically, this article traces how scientific and public perspectives of invasive introduced trees evolved in South Africa during the twentieth century. It argues that concerns about the impact of invasive introduced trees first developed in the Mediterranean-climate region of the southwestern Cape Province during the 1940s and 1950s before emerging elsewhere in South Africa during the 1970s and early 1980s. Though there has been a nation-wide convergence in scientific and public views of invasive trees since the 1980s, there are still stark geographic and cultural knowledge divergences that hinder the effectiveness of contemporary invasive tree management efforts. This study suggests that geographical knowledge imbalances between regions should not be overlooked when historicizing or planning environmental management schemes at national scales.
Tree species have been planted widely beyond their native ranges to provide or enhance ecosystem services such as timber and fibre production, erosion control, and aesthetic or amenity benefits. At ...the same time, non-native tree species can have strongly negative impacts on ecosystem services when they naturalize and subsequently become invasive and disrupt or transform communities and ecosystems. The dichotomy between positive and negative effects on ecosystem services has led to significant conflicts over the removal of non-native invasive tree species worldwide. These conflicts are often viewed in only a local context but we suggest that a global synthesis sheds important light on the dimensions of the phenomenon. We collated examples of conflict surrounding the control or management of tree invasions where conflict has caused delay, increased cost, or cessation of projects aimed at invasive tree removal. We found that conflicts span a diverse range of taxa, systems and countries, and that most conflicts emerge around three areas: urban and near-urban trees; trees that provide direct economic benefits; and invasive trees that are used by native species for habitat or food. We suggest that such conflict should be seen as a normal occurrence in invasive tree removal. Assessing both positive and negative effects of invasive species on multiple ecosystem services may provide a useful framework for the resolution of conflicts.
Today, the world's forests are threatened by global warming, growing demand for wood products, and increasing pressure to clear tropical forests for agricultural use. Economic globalization has ...enabled Western corporations to export timber processing jobs and import cheap wood products from developing countries. Timber plantations of exotic, fast-growing species supply an ever-larger amount of the world's wood. In response, many countries have established forest areas protected from development. In this book, Brett Bennett views today's forestry issues from a historical perspective. The separation of wood production from the protection of forests, he shows, stems from entangled environmental, social, political, and economic factors. This divergence -- driven by the concomitant intensification of production and creation of vast protected areas -- is reshaping forest management systems both public and private. Bennett shows that plantations and protected areas evolved from, and then undermined, an earlier integrated forest management system that sought both to produce timber and to conserve the environment. He describes the development of the science and profession of forestry in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe; discusses the twentieth-century creation of timber plantations in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia; and examines the controversies over deforestation that led to the establishment of protected areas. Bennett argues that the problems associated with the bifurcation of forest management -- including the loss of forestry knowledge necessary to manage large ecosystems for diverse purposes -- suggest that a more integrated model would be preferable.
This article explains how South African foresters have selected, experimented with and successfully grown Australian genera and species of trees in plantations during the past 130 years. First in the ...Cape Colony in the 1880s and 1890s, and later elsewhere in South Africa in the twentieth century, foresters developed theoretical techniques to find climates similar to those in southern Africa in order to select exotic species of trees from those regions. They then tested these species in experimental arboreta and plantations across South Africa to select the most successful and valuable species to grow commercially in each area. This globally unique and ultimately successful research programme arose in response to local environmental constraints, an increasing demand for timber, and the difficulties that foresters and white settlers faced when trying to select and grow Australian trees. This article revises historical understandings of the development of silviculture in South Africa and intervenes in current scientific and popular debates over Australian trees in South Africa.
This innovative interdisciplinary study focuses on the history, science, and policy of tree planting and water conservation in South Africa. South Africa’s forestry sector has sat—often ...controversially—at the crossroads of policy and scientific debates regarding water conservation, economic development, and biodiversity protection. Bennett and Kruger show how debates about the hydrological impact of exotic tree planting in South Africa shaped the development of modern scientific ideas and state policies relating to timber plantations, water conservation, invasive species control, and biodiversity management within South Africa as well as elsewhere in the world. Forestry and Water Conservation in South Africa shows how scientific research on the impact of exotic and native vegetation led to the development of a comprehensive national policy for conserving water, producing timber, and protecting indigenous species from invasive alien plants. Policies and laws relating to forests and water began to change in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a result of political and administrative changes within South Africa. This book suggests that the country’s contemporary policies towards timber plantations, guided by the National Water Act of 1998, need to be reconsidered in light of the authors’ findings. Bennett and Kruger also call for more interdisciplinary research and greater emphasis on integrated policies and management plans for forestry, invasive alien plants, water conservation, and biodiversity preservation.
Scholars studying the globalization of Australian trees have previously emphasized the rapid natural propagation of Australian trees outside of their native habitats, believing their success to be a ...reversal of “ecological imperialism” from the “new world” to the “old world.” This article argues that the expansion of Australian trees should not be viewed as a biological phenomenon, but as the result of a long-term attempt by powerful states and state-sponsored scientists to select and breed Australian species that could grow in a variety of climates and ecological conditions. Five non-biological factors largely determined the success of these attempts to grow Australian trees: the abundance or paucity of natural forests, state power, the amount of scientific research directed to planting Australian trees, the cost of labor, and the ability to utilize hardwood timbers and bark. This paper compares the use of Australian trees in Australia, India, and South Africa to demonstrate that biology was not the determining factor in the long-term success of many Australian genera and species.
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