Comments on: Are Paulownia crops the same as Monsanto GM corn?

By: Carole Sevilla Brown

Carole Sevilla Brown — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 22:33:45 +0000

Yes, plants and animals have been moved around by natural forces, but that happens over extremely long periods of time. That amount of time allows for adaptation. We however, have been moving these plants around with such speed that insects and other wildlife have not had that period of adaptation time. Therefore plants that would normally have biological controls in their native environment do not have them in new environments, and that is how we’re having such a problem with these plants. It’s a totally human-made problem. So my goal is to help people learn how to make healthier choices for our gardens. Just because Home Depot sells these plants, doesn’t mean they’re the best choice for our local wildlife. There are so many other plants that provide actual value to wildlife.

By: Carole Sevilla Brown

Carole Sevilla Brown — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 22:23:49 +0000

LB, yes humans have made some very poor choices when it comes to protecting the wildlife and ecosystems of our beautiful land. We can also learn to make more responsible choices in our gardens and in our communities. That’s the point of this site.

By: LB

LB — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:25:01 +0000

So Johnny Appleseed was an ECO criminal?
Man and all his good and bad judged choices is part of the ecosystem. WE have always changed our local habitats good or bad to suit our desires. Usually for our own gains. But who is to say our extinction or survival will be bad for the environment? Human is the animal this planet has naturally grown. Let the Earth decide our fate and we should quit being so selfish about our survival over the rest of the planet, from it’s dust we came, and unto we shall return again. Or maybe Humans participation on this planet is the evolution that is normal for it. Maybe the dinosaurs and us are just the preamble for the next something to come along.
Nothing remains the same. All must change and we cannot stop it. When change stops all life dies!
Personnaly I want to see the stink bugs gone!

By: ecologist

ecologist — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:41:56 +0000

Can you answer a question for me: by what process did the assembly of plants you’re labelling as ‘native’ come to exist in your area? Surely not all at once: and most assuredly, as a part of an ONGOING process that involved constant new arrivals, some of which would doubtless have ‘invasive’ tendencies. I find it curious that you’ve arbitrarily declared the present plant community as ‘native’, and thus made it static, and divorced it completely from the ongoing (that word again) ecological processes that gave rise to such a diverse system in the first place. Plant evolution, climate-change adaptation, and the ongoing health of ecosystems have always depended on the rather constant (and, in biological terms ‘sudden’) arrival of novel species. Your position is, in fact, profoundly unecological: you deny the necessary role of novelty and change in system resilience. Just because a human being defines a system as ‘native’ doesn’t diminish the essential role of dynamism. Keep a close eye on your precious ‘native plant’ communities: as the climate increasingly changes, they’ll become maladapted, and those who have been propagating and breeding alternatives will be the ones who save the day. Thank God some of us actually grasp ecology, and dont’ fall into the trap of nativism, and the entirely subjective, culture-based realm of defining ‘good’ and ‘bad’ species. The surest indicator of ecological ignorance there is.

By: Terry

Terry — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:31:07 +0000

I always understood that once you start coppicing (isn’t this how this plantation crop would be managed?) a paulownia tree, you forsake blooms, and therefore also seeds. Is this not correct?