"Invasive Plant Medicine" with Hannah Schiller of Foliage Botanics

Invasive plants are seen as a huge problem, and there's this constant narrative of warmongering against them. However, it's important to challenge this, and the damage that such a narrative can also do to our environment.

Even invasive plants developed within and belong in a system, and desire to simply be plants; the plant competition model has been largely scientifically disproven in favor of reciprocal community models. We know that plants desire to inherently survive, to help one another survive in most cases, and to do what they biologically developed to do.

Most biological developments, in their home environments, are often positive. They only become negative when they are transplanted to new environments where they outcompete the plants that evolved in those environments. And that's the definition of "invasive": Non-native, causes harm to (ecological, environmental, and human) "health", and prolifically spreading.

The first plants we often learn are "bad", however, are usually natives like Poison Ivy. Every plant can be seen as damaging or detrimental- whether bodily, economically, or in some other way; "harm" is deeply based in perspective. When we overblow that harm, we do damage. What trajectory does that set us up for in the future, however, when the first plants we learn to view as "harmful" are our own native plants?

The words and language we use to speak about things inherently shapes the way we think about the world around us. In that regard, we frequently use words like "alien" and "noxious" to describe these plants. This language is reflective of various aspects of our culture and society, and how we degrade and empower specific aspects and forms of life.

Language such as this is inherently tied to capitalistic and imperialistic mentalities, racism, etc (such as the racism behind what gets clasified as an "invasive" versus what gets merely classified as a "weed", even while having the same actions - or how the word "alien" is also most often specifically applied to POC migrants). If we are learning to view the plant world with such a moralistic view from the start, how does this translate to how we view the wider world, and how does this view intentionally support such colonialist, capitalist, and racist systems in the end?

How do we actually decide which people and plants "belong" anywhere?

Plant spread is inherently intertwined with Human migration. Most so-called invasive species were introduced to new regions because "I'm moving to a new environment, and I can't live without my [x] or [y] or [z] plant", or because they didn't know what would be available. Others were introduced for beauty, or some kind of practical reason. We must therefore admit that we ourselves are responsible for invasives- but also hold compassion and understanding for the fact that our ancestors were unaware of their invasive potential.

Plants themselves cannot be moralized regardless of the problems they cause when transplanted to new environments, when they are simply trying to survive where we put them. More importantly, they cannot themselves actively colonize.

We don't actually know what "ecological purity" looks like. The obsession with the myth of ecological purity is deeply rooted in western authoritarian puritanism, and nativism. But true ecological purity never existed for us; not only did our colonial ancestors destroy the environment they moved to, but that environment was already being actively tended by the indigenous populations upon their arrival. And that mythological ecological purity they imagined they saw when they arrived ultimately cannot be backtracked to. Especially not in an era of rising climate change.

There is this idea of invasives as habitat disruptors that actively come into these ecologically rich areas and destroy them. But in reality, most research shows that invasives are oportunistically taking over areas that have already been ecologically destroyed, or are already degraded, where natives already cannot survive any (or for much) longer.

And why is there more heat? Why is there more open space? Why is there more sun? Why was the Ozone Layer being destroyed? The answer is people; we, in the modern era, are the single largest driving force of ecological destruction in the world. So how do we recenter ourselves as the problem? How do we recenter the problems we created (and continue to create) through industrialization, ecological destruction, etc? And how does this destruction we are ultimately responsible for, ultimately improve the chances for invasives, and the success rate of their spread?

Only 18% of native demise is directly caused by invasives. And there is no direct evidence that any single invasive is actually specifically responsible for the extinction of any native.

But also: People and plants naturally move together, and landscapes naturally change. We do have to be somewhat adaptive instead of distracted- especially as climate change marches onward. And so we need to better study how these invasives can support and interact with a changing environment. Because invasives still have benefits, and still have the ability to heal- and that capacity doesn't vanish simply because they cause damage in certain environments.

We don't need to be actively planting invasives. But we can be loving these plants from afar while they're already established, and still actively trying to prevent their spread; things do not have to be so divided into "pro" or "against". There is room for balance.

We often associate plants and plant care with women. How does our language reflect that- and how does that change our attitudes towards various areas related to plants and plant care?

It's hard to break down the systematcially ingrained negatives of these plants. But doing something that actively engages with them helps to begin breaking down the moral dichotomy we are taught; it's about challenging oppressive systems which are also deeply ingrained in the plant world.

Using invasives is a choice of using the best alternative rather than the best for the job. Likewise, there is an element of wild foods that is very much a case of personal texture preference.

a Bioregional Herbalist -(the better term is Ecoregional, and I will die on this hill every time)- is an Herbalist who prioritizes landscape repair and restoration through their herbalism through prioritizing local plants, especially local (especially ancestral) invasives, and does not use traditional chemical methods of control, but rather focuses on balance of use.