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What’s wrong with garlic mustard? Ask Marilyn
Leger, and she’ll tell you that no plant is bad, but that garlic mustard is one
of many plants that can produce bad effects when people establish them in the
wrong place. And natural areas in Illinois are definitely the wrong place for garlic
mustard.
Garlic mustard was brought to North America by
European immigrants in the 1860s as a culinary herb, but by the late twentieth
century it proved to be one of the worst plants ever introduced in the
northeast and Midwest. Left alone, garlic mustard crowds out native plants,
which can lead to any number of bad effects, from depriving insects and the
animals that eat them of an important food source, to depriving birds of the
cover they need for nesting, and more.
Leger is co chair of the Invasive Plant Task Force,
a committee of the east central Illinois Master Naturalist Program. The task
force also works toward change in the policies and behaviors that promote the
spread of invasive plants, and combats invasive plants through direct action.
Currently, it is conducting the third annual Great Garlic Mustard Hunt, a weeks-long series of opportunities for volunteers to help
control garlic mustard in natural areas by pulling the plants. (It’s important
to do that in the spring, while the ground is soft and before they go to seed.)
[Photo by Marilyn Leger. Past Great Garlic Mustard Hunt participants, left to right: John McWilliams, Nathan Hudson, Eileen Borgia, Mike Daab, Cindy Strehlow, Susan Campbell. At Homer Lake Forest Preserve.]
Last year’s hunt involved more than 150
participants, who together removed more than seven tons of garlic mustard from
sites including Allerton Park near Monticello, Meadowbrook Park in Urbana and the
Homer Lake Forest Preserve.
Unfortunately, pulling garlic mustard is a
rearguard action. It is nearly impossible eradicate weedy plants once they
become invasive, despite the good will and hard work of dedicated volunteers.
The most effective way to fight the establishment of invasive, exotic plants is
through effective regulation at the state and national levels.
For thoughts on that, I turned to Fran Harty, who is
currently a director of special projects with the Nature Conservancy Illinois.
In a former role with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Harty was
among those who in the 1980s helped call attention to the widespread problems
caused by purposeful introductions of exotic species in the state, and
developed strategies for dealing with them.
For intentional introductions such as landscaping plants or
biofuels, which are planted widely, Harty suggests that the cost of early
detection, eradication, and control of invasive exotic species be “taken off
the shoulders of the taxpayer and placed where it belongs, with the purveyor.”
His sense of a business model that would work best in the
case of intentional introductions is for the purveyor to pay to the state an up
front, irrevocable “environmental
insurance bond” as a cost of doing business. Money generated by these bonds would
go into a “biosecurity” fund, which would be invested and used to pay the costs
associated with monitoring and handling the consequences of widespread
introductions that go awry.
Harty reasons that purveyors who want to introduce exotic
species would be highly selective in their decisions about what plants to try
if they were required to pay a significant amount up front, say $500,000 per
species. If a $500,000 bond seems high, Harty points out, consider that it
represents miniscule percentage of the $7.7 billion U.S. taxpayers spend every
year to control invasive species.
Click below for more information about the Great Garlic Mustard Hunt:
