[MAIPC] Rebuttal of NY Times anti-natives oped by Klinkenborg

[Marielle Anzelone]

The Times opinion eds publish pieces that provoke. I am an op-ed
contributor myself and all my pieces are in support of natives. It is
fashionable of late to be anti native plants though.

"When NYC Bloomed"
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/25/opinion/20110326-opart.html?ref=opinion#1

"Mountain-mint Broke My Heart"
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/mean-streets-for-staten-island-mountain-mint.html

"Greedy Gardeners"
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/opinion/greedy-gardeners.html?ref=opinion

The most recent was widely shared. I got lots of emails from folks who were
mad about my pro-native stance.



_______________________________*
New York Times contributor

- Opinion -
"When New York City Bloomed" http://nyti.ms/esSlb6
"Mountain Mint Broke My Heart" http://nyti.ms/RSUXim

- City Room series -
Autumn Unfolds:  http://nyti.ms/uHyprz
Spring Time:  *http://nyti.ms/GCEzOE


On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 3:36 PM, kathi mestayer <kschachinger at gmail.com>wrote:

> Here's the letter to the editor I sent last Sunday....in a huff.
>
> Would that it were so....that the fact that our categories of "native" and
> "nonnative" have become fuzzy around the edges makes the distinction
> irrelevant.  Or that the arrival of europeans on the continent is the
> baseline.  The fact is that "native" plants are those that share an
> evolutionary history with other species (not just one or two) in a
> particular region or area.  It's true; nonnatives are not all invasive.
>  But none of them have the kind of habitat value that natives, as a group,
> have.  Native species are like environmental puzzle pieces; in a given
> area, each native is a piece of that puzzle in that place.  Nonnatives may
> be attractive, they may have some habitat value, and they may not spread
> out of control.  But they don't fit in the puzzle, and therefore, they
> don't contribute nearly as much as the puzzle pieces that fit.
>
> I remember being at a conservation landscaping conference in northern
> Virginia a couple of years ago.  Someone asked one of the speakers what she
> should say when a homeowner asked, "Why is it so important to plant native
> plants?"  The speaker answered, "It's not because of what we know....it's
> because of what we *don't* know.  We can't possibly understand all of the
> ways that the species in a given area interact with, support, and predate,
> each other.  So we plant natives because we do know that they are going to
> fit right in to a very complex system."
>
> Finally, the fact that there is little that we can do about it doesn't
> make it okay to do nothing.  This is a problem for people who fight battles
> even though they don't think they can really win.  It's because it's worth
> fighting anyway.
>
>
>
> Kathi Mestayer
> KMA Consulting
> 105 Gilley Drive
> Williamsburg, Va 23188
> kwren at widomaker.com
> 757-229-6575
> 757-229-9396 (fax)
>
> "There are 10 kinds of people -- people who understand binary and people
> who don't."
> - Anon.
>
>
> On Sep 14, 2013, at 2:57 PM, Stephen Hiltner wrote:
>
> For anyone irked by Verlyn Klinkenborg's Sept. 7 oped in the New York
> Times, in which he argues against distinguishing between native and
> non-native species, I've researched and written a point by point rebuttal<http://newscompanion.blogspot.com/2013/09/going-negative-on-natives-new-york.html>. I
> also mention two previous NY Times opeds dismissive of native plants, by
> George Ball and Sean Wilsey, and provide background information on the
> incident that prompted Klinkenborg's oped--the proposal to thin eucalyptus
> from a forest in San Francisco.
>
> Does anyone remember a NY Times oped that extols the benefits of native
> plants and habitat restoration? Surely there must be some.
>
> Steve
> NewsCompanion.com
> PrincetonNatureNotes.org
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