Invasion/Invasive
Name
171Ritvo.pdf
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136.19 KB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
2ed0dcfa634734b4f0bb9d020c2ed5e0
Author(s)
Ritvo, Harriet
Date Issued
May 2017
Journal
Environmental Humanities
Publisher
Duke University Press
Citation
Ritvo, Harriet. “Invasion/Invasive.” Environmental Humanities, vol. 9, no. 1, May 2017, pp. 171–74. © 2017 Harriet Ritvo
Version
Final published version
Abstract
My garden is being invaded by Japanese knotweed, as are those of my neighbors and those of many people who live in other places far from its native East Asia. I keep it more or less under control by eliminating individual extrusions, but I know that I am engaged in an open-ended struggle rather than a campaign leading to possible victory. The knotweed’s root system is extensive and deep, making it nearly impossible to extirpate once it has become established. In Massachusetts, the Japanese knotweed is one of
sixty-six species that have been designated “invasive” by the Massachusetts Invasive Plant Advisory Group (a nonprofit organization that works in coordination with state and federal agencies). Like the other sixty-five species on the blacklist, it has been banned for importation, propagation, and sale within the state; but given the robustness and vigor of the plant, these official sanctions seem a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has run away. The same may be true of ostensibly more draconian measures promulgated in other polities: in the United Kingdom, the discovery of Japanese knotweed on a property may reduce its assessed value, and in parts of Australia it is formally prohibited.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Humanities. History Section
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3829190
