Invasive Species Week
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What is the significance of Invasive Species Week in Ireland?
Two weeks ago, the Irish Wildlife Trust marked invasive species week, using it as an opportunity to highlight a growing but often overlooked threat to Ireland's biodiversity. Now, while many of us take pride in our gardens, the reality is that some of the most popular plants we use, like cherry laurel, rhododendron and Spanish bluebell, can escape into the wild. crowding out native species and disrupting entire ecosystems. In fact, invasive species are now recognised as one of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss globally. The message from the Irish Wildlife Trust is clear. Be plant-wise, let nature lead and choose native. That might mean allowing what's already in your soil to grow back naturally or choosing locally sourced native trees and plants that support wildlife.
So what can people actually do and how urgent is the situation? We're joined now by Oisín O'Neill. Oisín is Nature Advocacy Officer with the Irish Wildlife Trust. Hello, Oisín, how are you?
Which popular garden plants are considered invasive species?
Hi, Derek. I'm good, thanks. Thanks for having me.
We're delighted to have you. So tell us about the week you had.
Yeah, so Invasive Species Week ran from the 22nd to the 28th of June. And it's generally a week to bring awareness to one of the biggest pressures on biodiversity and nature in Ireland that we're currently facing, which are invasive species. So we ran a campaign, basically, which was encouraging people to... plant native trees and plants in their gardens and just to identify invasive species. And we were putting out calls of action to people, to gardeners and to policymakers around this very urgent issue that we're facing in Ireland today.
Now, in order to identify an invasive or a non-native species, you have to know what you're looking at in the first place. Did people know what they were looking at?
Exactly. Well, yeah, that's one of the big problems with invasive species. People don't know what an invasive species is and people don't know what a native species is either. So in order to combat this, there's a lot of great resources out there. So a good place to start really is the National Biodiversity Data Centre.
How do invasive species affect Ireland's biodiversity?
They have a great slogan around this is to be plant wise. And this means choosing plants that support biodiversity and don't escape into the wild and ultimately harm biodiversity. But of course, to do this, you need to recognise what's native and what's invasive. The good thing about the native species is, as we were telling people during the week, you can allow native species to recover by themselves. So you don't actually have to go out and try to identify them and try to buy them, that sort of stuff. If you let a patch of your garden rewild or if you just let the seed bank come up, the native species will emerge. The key then is really for people to identify invasive species, because when you plant an invasive species in the garden, that's the one that's going to escape into your local ecosystem and cause so much damage.
And there are great resources for this on the National Biodiversity Data Centre website. And if people can just familiarise themselves with some of the more well-known, highly invasive species that are unfortunately still for sale in garden centres, that is a really, really great start. And this is what we were trying to encourage people to do last week.
Now, Eanna, I'm sure you were involved with this initiative.
Well, yes, I was in actual fact. Irish Wildlife Trust in County Cavan ran a month's course on this, a couple of nights a week for four weeks. And I was, I guess, lecturer at one of the weeks up there in Bailey Borough and in Cavan talking about invasive species there. So it was a great opportunity and Irish Wildlife Trust are to be commended for doing this. And we were having great discussions about what actually an invasive species is. So you have native species, you have alien species, you have introduced species, you have invasive species. So is everything that isn't a native species in Ireland an invasive species? And no, of course, this is not the case.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the significance of Invasive Species Week in Ireland?
0:00–1:04
2
Which popular garden plants are considered invasive species?
1:04–2:14
3
How do invasive species affect Ireland's biodiversity?
2:14–4:35
4
What actions can people take to combat invasive species?
4:35–8:39
5
What resources are available to identify invasive species?
8:39–17:57
6
What defines an invasive species versus a naturalized species?
17:57–19:16