Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
aware of the threat of Miconia in the early 1990s by the Hawaiian press, but the
alarm was raised only after the plant had been in the state for about 20 years
(Medeiros et al. 1997) - perhaps late in Miconia's lag phase in this new range but
still early enough to achieve eradication had ample funds been promptly mustered,
sustained, and administered. Instead, the campaign has needed to rely on a patch
quilt of funding from county, state, and federal agencies. Funding in the last few
years has been approximately one million dollars, which Kaiser (2006) concludes
is too little as employed to halt the spread, much less reverse it. By 2007, even parts
of this inadequate funding were in jeopardy (http://www.mauinews.com/page/con-
tent.detail/id/28162.html). Without the public's insistence to increase the resources
devoted to this campaign, the spread of
Miconia
in Hawaii and its concomitant
damage seem assured.
On the basis of the points outlined above, the feasibility of any plant eradication
program could likely be distilled to a simple sum of “yes” and “no” answers to
produce an accurate recommendation on whether to proceed with eradication.
Although a decision of “proceed no further” could be reasonably drawn from a
string of mostly negative responses (e.g., no, the target species is not readily
detected in the landscape), the examples we have reviewed here show that aside
from sustained public support, there is no apparent minimum number of features
that spell success or failure. But without broad public support the rationale decision
for a proposed eradication effort may well be “proceed no further.”
3.10 Conclusions
We have reviewed the basis for whether invasive and potentially invasive plant spe-
cies can be eradicated. This question is not new: the difficulty of totally destroying
all members of an alien species has long been appreciated, especially when the
species is widespread and in innumerable, inaccessible sites. We contend that this
debate is best conducted by carefully examining cases histories, both successes and
failures in eradications. In our view, measured optimism is warranted on prospects
for successful eradications (Simberloff 2002),
provided
a series of steps are rigor-
ously applied, e.g., rapid response when little of the potential new range has been
occupied, first action directed at the outlier foci, diligent resurvey of treated sites to
remove newly emergent or overlooked individuals. Perhaps most important here is
a step that ecologists and land managers have not uniformly pursued - soliciting
active public involvement in the eradication effort by (1) informing the public of
the need for eradication in environmental and economic terms and (2) gaining ade-
quate, sustained public funds and assistance for destroying all populations of the
target species. Application of the ecological lessons of combating invasive species
combined with a deliberate strategy for gaining public involvement are essential for
success.
