Trouble in the Food Forest

<v Speaker 1>Hello, and welcome to an emergency emergency episode of the
<v Speaker 1>Crime Pace of Botany Doesn't Permaculture Podcast. Today we're talking
<v Speaker 1>about like permaculture and like like food for us and stuff.
<v Speaker 1>And I have my friend Lily is here too. We're
<v Speaker 1>going to talk about part Neither one of us is
<v Speaker 1>an expert on permaculture. I just I don't need to
<v Speaker 1>fucking talk. I don't know why I talk like that.
<v Speaker 1>I think I just I've been traumatized, but I uh,
<v Speaker 1>I anyway, this is a this is an emergency episode.
<v Speaker 1>It'll be a short one, but I'm just curious. I
<v Speaker 1>keep encountering and encountering invasion biology deniers in the field
<v Speaker 1>of permaculture, and it is a it's a trend as
<v Speaker 1>as ready as like you know, no one like somebody's racist,
<v Speaker 1>the Caucasian uncle is going to be a climate denier.
<v Speaker 1>It's like the same thing which which we don't need
<v Speaker 1>to get into it. You can agree to disagree, but
<v Speaker 1>you know, it's just a trade. It's just a commonality
<v Speaker 1>that you keep keep encountering. It's it's a very predictable stereotype.
<v Speaker 1>So I and maybe you, Lily, maybe this is just me,
<v Speaker 1>But I've been. I've been just so desperate to understand
<v Speaker 1>where this comes from and understand what permaculture is. And
<v Speaker 1>so I looked into it a little bit. And neither
<v Speaker 1>one of us is an expert in this at all.
<v Speaker 1>I should mention this is just a conversation to get
<v Speaker 1>you think and so you.
<v Speaker 2>But I do have I have a lot of knowledge
<v Speaker 2>in growing food and farming, and I mean that was
<v Speaker 2>one of my core interests before I got into data plants.
<v Speaker 3>So I have a lot of.
<v Speaker 1>A lot of But now but now you like, you're
<v Speaker 1>like working against the food forest and you work for Monsanto?
<v Speaker 1>Is that? What is that? What's going on? Are you
<v Speaker 1>working for me?
<v Speaker 2>The thing is that it doesn't have to be for
<v Speaker 2>or against. It's just the way that permaculture is being
<v Speaker 2>enacted currently. The trends in permaculture are not sustainable.
<v Speaker 1>That's okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, But okay,
<v Speaker 1>I'm not for against it. I just am noticing a
<v Speaker 1>correlation between yes, you know, uh, mostly dudes. It's mostly
<v Speaker 1>men that pop up in a comments section talking shit.
<v Speaker 1>When I mentioned invasion biology and then I had one, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>mostly Anglo man, mostly Caucasian. Mostly they're kind of pink.
<v Speaker 1>They're kind of pink. But but I but they I
<v Speaker 1>don't know why they get so salty about this though,
<v Speaker 1>And that's what And then today tell me I'm working
<v Speaker 1>I had someone tell me I was working for Bear,
<v Speaker 1>and I had someone else tell me that I'm just indoctrinated,
<v Speaker 1>like they think like native plant ecology and and understanding
<v Speaker 1>native plant functionality is just some like puritanical, like elitist,
<v Speaker 1>you know, occult, which I guess I kind of did.
<v Speaker 1>I thought that two fifteen years ago. I mean, in
<v Speaker 1>some cases, yeah, there's I mean there's a lot of
<v Speaker 1>like pasty vanilla fucking you know. A lot of them
<v Speaker 1>also hate this podcast, which I'm proud of. But there's
<v Speaker 1>a lot of people on that side who are you know,
<v Speaker 1>who who do is? Who are always talking about well,
<v Speaker 1>it's got to be native you know, I get where
<v Speaker 1>it comes from. But but they're not looking at the
<v Speaker 1>meat of the issue that I think they just kind
<v Speaker 1>of get triggered by. And then there's all you really
<v Speaker 1>get stupid when you start comparing you know, xenophobia and
<v Speaker 1>all this other shit to it. But I'm just trying
<v Speaker 1>to understand where this comes from. So so what you know,
<v Speaker 1>when I looking into permaculture, what I could understand is
<v Speaker 1>that first off, it's always like the same I hate
<v Speaker 1>to say, but the same like cliche of person. It's
<v Speaker 1>like some kind of you know, some dudes you might
<v Speaker 1>see in like a crystal shop in Mount Shasta or
<v Speaker 1>something explaining you know, like whole integrative system. Like they're
<v Speaker 1>using all the same words like holistic, integrative. Basically, what
<v Speaker 1>they're doing, what they seem to be doing, is like
<v Speaker 1>describing how on ecosystem functions.
<v Speaker 2>Like they yes, they're trying to recreate ecosystems essentially.
<v Speaker 1>And which which seems like a cool idea if you're
<v Speaker 1>gonna grow food, it's much better than a monoculture, sure, right.
<v Speaker 2>But their ecosystems functioning all around them, which they're ignoring,
<v Speaker 2>is a big issue.
<v Speaker 1>Well that's the thing is they function on they they
<v Speaker 1>they focus on functionality, uh, without really any clear understanding
<v Speaker 1>of ecology. It's like it's like none of them ever
<v Speaker 1>bothered the crack open a fucking Elder Leopold book, you know,
<v Speaker 1>or or anything else. And and but.
<v Speaker 2>They also like there's a severe lack of ecological education
<v Speaker 2>throughout the Western world, right right.
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, and it's the symptom of I mean, the
<v Speaker 1>anthropocentric society we live in, which is like the living
<v Speaker 1>world's expendable. Just get it out of the way, you know,
<v Speaker 1>you just got to clear it so you can put
<v Speaker 1>some shit that really matters there, which is something that
<v Speaker 1>that's you know, like a fucking big lots or a
<v Speaker 1>whether it's agriculture or whatever. It's just like, there's no purpose.
<v Speaker 1>It's this beautiful living machine that took millions of years
<v Speaker 1>of co evolution. Let's just get rid of it so
<v Speaker 1>we can put our own shit up. But an example
<v Speaker 1>of like how the permaculturalists do this, from what I
<v Speaker 1>can understand, is like again, they just focus on function.
<v Speaker 1>They're like, well, acacia trees fixed nitrogen, So let's plant
<v Speaker 1>some acacias. It doesn't matter that they've you know, they're
<v Speaker 1>all native and spent the last fifty million years evolving
<v Speaker 1>on the Australian continent or thereabouts. Let's plant them in California.
<v Speaker 1>What could go wrong when, Yeah, the tragedy is that, well,
<v Speaker 1>there's native California plants that also do that, and you
<v Speaker 1>could just go and that.
<v Speaker 2>They could probably collect seed from for free rather than
<v Speaker 2>purchasing a bunch of you know, expensive trees from somewhere.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, Where do you think this? Where where do
<v Speaker 1>you think that comes from? And why are they so RESIVERI?
<v Speaker 2>I think it comes from our cultural indoctrination, which tells
<v Speaker 2>us that, you know, when we are looking for an
<v Speaker 2>answer to or a solution of some kind, right, which is,
<v Speaker 2>we don't trust our food systems, and commercial foodsystems are
<v Speaker 2>incredibly harmful, unsustainable and dangerous to us as well to
<v Speaker 2>ingest like that's a reality. And so they're trying to
<v Speaker 2>figure out a way to create sustainable food systems in
<v Speaker 2>their own on their own land, which is also a
<v Speaker 2>great seems like a great thing, it is great, But
<v Speaker 2>then the way in which they go about it about
<v Speaker 2>it is through that same system that created these sick
<v Speaker 2>food systems, right, which is, they google edible plants and
<v Speaker 2>then they pick five plants from whatever thing they read
<v Speaker 2>online or they read some book, and then they go
<v Speaker 2>out and purchase these things from wherever. And they're completely
<v Speaker 2>ignoring the functioning ecoisms around them and the cultural history
<v Speaker 2>and knowledge of the ethnobotany of their region, like how
<v Speaker 2>humans used already the plants that existed around them for
<v Speaker 2>you know, hundreds of thousands of years, and and in
<v Speaker 2>doing so, they're creating cascading harming to last for many, many,
<v Speaker 2>many hundreds of years.
<v Speaker 1>It is not thousands, right, because they're planting. They're basically,
<v Speaker 1>in some cases directly planting.
<v Speaker 2>Invasion is a form of colonialism and anthropocentrism, just like
<v Speaker 2>and it's it's so self centered, you know, it's like, oh, well,
<v Speaker 2>I want to eat this, so I'm going to take this,
<v Speaker 2>ignore the function of the land around me and the
<v Speaker 2>function of the plants around me and animals and everything,
<v Speaker 2>and I'm going to plant this in my yard during
<v Speaker 2>all of those things because I want to eat it.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Well, colonialism or not, you know, I this time,
<v Speaker 1>I get what you mean. But it's you know, the
<v Speaker 1>terminology makes it sound like a college case, like you know,
<v Speaker 1>like that. Okay, that is side. I'm sure I'm probably
<v Speaker 1>just pissed some people off and saying that, but I
<v Speaker 1>just you know that I lived on the West Coast
<v Speaker 1>too long. I heard people using that word for fucking
<v Speaker 1>everything ship that had no connection to.
<v Speaker 3>It, to it.
<v Speaker 1>It was just with these lecturing rich kids. But I
<v Speaker 1>get what you mean. But the point is. I think
<v Speaker 1>it's just anthrop it's just anthropostentrist. It's just I don't
<v Speaker 1>understand when you tell them, like, look, there's fucking native
<v Speaker 1>plants that do this too. There's native plants that are medicinal,
<v Speaker 1>like fuck mullen. There's native plant like Urba Santa Aero Dictiana, California.
<v Speaker 1>There's a wealth of ethno botanical knowledge from Native American
<v Speaker 1>communities that many plants that do these same things that
<v Speaker 1>have but they evolved there, and they co evolved there
<v Speaker 1>with a wealth of other organisms, and they're not harmful
<v Speaker 1>to the ecology. When you tell these permaculture people this ship,
<v Speaker 1>they get mad and they just ignore it. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>that's what I don't care.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I haven't had that experience, but it does seem
<v Speaker 2>to be the crux of the problem is like that
<v Speaker 2>information is not quite readily available, like and has been
<v Speaker 2>systematically suppressed and destroyed.
<v Speaker 1>In Yeah, I just destroyed by the death cult, by
<v Speaker 1>the same death cult they created this fucking mentality in
<v Speaker 1>the first place. But yeah, but it's funny though.
<v Speaker 3>I Mean, I also think it's laziness in a way.
<v Speaker 2>It's just easier to like go out in the store
<v Speaker 2>and buy you know, it's a cheap, easy way to
<v Speaker 2>go about things, you know, which is you know what
<v Speaker 2>our culture is pushes us to do.
<v Speaker 1>I think, I mean, I think I fucked up my algorithm.
<v Speaker 1>Now I'm going to get like permaculture recommendations for you know,
<v Speaker 1>because it's like youtubing this, I'm like, I want to
<v Speaker 1>hear what some of these goofballs have to say. And
<v Speaker 1>this little like frail frail ball guy that looks like
<v Speaker 1>he's sexually overcharged and putting crystals in his rectum, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I want to hear what he's got to say. And
<v Speaker 1>so But anyway, but the thing that I've I've noticed
<v Speaker 1>that they keep repeating is they're talking about like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>they use all these words. It's it's holistic, it's integrative,
<v Speaker 1>it's blah blah. But to me, it's like there's someone
<v Speaker 1>who travels around the world looking at plant ecosystems. It's like, man,
<v Speaker 1>that's just ecology. You're just describing the way a natural
<v Speaker 1>ecosystem functions, and you're that's good, that's good, you got everything.
<v Speaker 1>But you're missing the functionality of native plants and that
<v Speaker 1>you know.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and trying to recreate ecosystems. One, you're like trying
<v Speaker 2>to recreate the wheel and you're never going to do
<v Speaker 2>it the way millions of years of evolution did it, right.
<v Speaker 2>It's like finger painting versus Michelangelo.
<v Speaker 1>Well, no, they don't understand, but they don't understand how
<v Speaker 1>that works. So that's the thing. They don't understand natural selection.
<v Speaker 1>They don't understand population genetics. They don't understand how a landscape,
<v Speaker 1>whether it's you know, a lowland coastal you know, dry
<v Speaker 1>deciduous forest, or whether it's an alpine mountain zone, how
<v Speaker 1>those you know, have shaped. They've literally the fucking landscape
<v Speaker 1>itself is literally bred the species or the ecotype that
<v Speaker 1>you're encountering there just the same way a human would select.
<v Speaker 2>And people have bred them as well, like they've been
<v Speaker 2>selected for over thousands of years as well.
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, but that's a much shorter time span than
<v Speaker 1>a lot of species. I mean, but either way, but yeah,
<v Speaker 1>oh yeah, or like you know, ground sloths inadvertently bred them,
<v Speaker 1>are hummingbirds inadvertently bread you know, plants with red tubular flowers.
<v Speaker 1>They don't understand that. And that's okay to I understand.
<v Speaker 1>I get that. It's the fucking it's how like rabid.
<v Speaker 1>Some of them turn yeah, and then they accuse you
<v Speaker 1>of working for Bear and just start saying dumb shit.
<v Speaker 1>And at that level, I'm like Jesus christ Man, like
<v Speaker 1>come on, like this is this is over? Like you're
<v Speaker 1>not you don't think I've heard this before, Like you're
<v Speaker 1>just parroting stuff now, you know. Yeah, but I want
<v Speaker 1>to I guess I want to understand it more. And
<v Speaker 1>I want to understand because it seems like, with a
<v Speaker 1>few tweaks, this could be something that's not even worth
<v Speaker 1>making fun of anymore, Like it could be a cool.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, definitely, And I think there are people out
<v Speaker 2>there doing it in a in a much more sustainable way.
<v Speaker 2>They're just uncommon and it's a bit more of a
<v Speaker 2>focus on foraging rather than trying to create an entire
<v Speaker 2>new ecosystem in your own yard or on your own land,
<v Speaker 2>like learning how to work with the seasons and work
<v Speaker 2>with the species that occur already in your region. You know,
<v Speaker 2>we have native bay trees, you can use those for herbs.
<v Speaker 2>We have native xanthoxylon, you can use those for schuan peppers.
<v Speaker 2>We have so many different native existing sumac berries, so
<v Speaker 2>many different native existing foods that are abundantly available. You
<v Speaker 2>don't even have to try planting. You just have to
<v Speaker 2>figure out areas that you can sustainably harvest them.
<v Speaker 1>And I think people this is another reason. Like with
<v Speaker 1>kill your lawn, it's like you can turn your your
<v Speaker 1>yard into an experimental ground for you know the usefulness
<v Speaker 1>of native plants by growing them, and then they're right
<v Speaker 1>outside your door and now you can see, Okay, maybe
<v Speaker 1>I'll use this for this. Or maybe that lukena that's
<v Speaker 1>growing outside the native one, not the one I can
<v Speaker 1>you know, it grows really fast, it produces straight timber.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe I can use those as like in place of
<v Speaker 1>bamboo poles. Yeah, maybe the xanthoslam I got that my
<v Speaker 1>friend yard too. Maybe I can use that. It's got
<v Speaker 1>a peppery taste. Maybe I can use that instead. I
<v Speaker 1>guess that's I don't know, man. I just I hope
<v Speaker 1>this stops being a thing it's as common in a
<v Speaker 1>decade or two, because I get tired of fucking arguing
<v Speaker 1>with these people, you know.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think the big issue is just the consumerist,
<v Speaker 2>you know, capitalist consumerist mindset, and that's how we understand
<v Speaker 2>and interact with the world. And until you kind of
<v Speaker 2>change that, you're going to be key. You're going to
<v Speaker 2>continue to fall victim to the same issues. And that's
<v Speaker 2>what really has irked me with when I see a
<v Speaker 2>lot of permaculturalist is there's this constant trend. There are
<v Speaker 2>trends and like hot new plants because it's all based
<v Speaker 2>still on capitalism, right, and so they have to somebody
<v Speaker 2>who is you know, selling, someone has to sell your product,
<v Speaker 2>and they because they need to survive, and so they're
<v Speaker 2>going to go out and find a new spinach substitute
<v Speaker 2>plant from Southeast Asia. And it's it's always like new, new, new,
<v Speaker 2>some new thing, and everybody has to go out and
<v Speaker 2>buy it and then it and then they're onto the
<v Speaker 2>next thing. Meanwhile that plant is creeping out into their neighborhood.
<v Speaker 1>You know, yeah, but it's okay because it's like medicinal.
<v Speaker 1>But that that's the the thing that I guess it's
<v Speaker 1>what I'm hoping that that maybe, like you know, native
<v Speaker 1>plant gardening inspires people to do, is like every instead
<v Speaker 1>of making this you know, homogenous, homogeneous, homogenized plant list,
<v Speaker 1>you know, experiment with what's what evolved in your area
<v Speaker 1>and what actually has millions of years of ties of evolution.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and research poganical uses of native plants. Pretty much
<v Speaker 2>every single native plant out there has been used in
<v Speaker 2>some way by humans.
<v Speaker 1>And embrace the difference. To embrace, embrace what's different. Well,
<v Speaker 1>this region has a different plant list than this one,
<v Speaker 1>and that's fucking cool. Let's try this instead of trying
<v Speaker 1>to just homogenize everything, like yeah, all this plant, well,
<v Speaker 1>plant dot Comfrey European Comfrey cause you know it's good
<v Speaker 1>for blah blah blah. Or you know, we'll plant Asian
<v Speaker 1>bamboo because it's good as a timber for biodynamic whatever
<v Speaker 1>the fuck and they put all these words on there.
<v Speaker 1>Just yeah, man, I just again just going.
<v Speaker 3>A little bit deeper too.
<v Speaker 2>If you know you need nitrogen fixing, then look up
<v Speaker 2>native nitrogen fixing plants in your area, how to identify
<v Speaker 2>them and how to collect seeds from them.
<v Speaker 1>Right, what collades are nitrogen fixing, Like some of.
<v Speaker 2>The specific alkaloid in this comfory that is the you know,
<v Speaker 2>the active ingredient that you're using it for. Than google
<v Speaker 2>and figure out which native plants also contain that active ingredient.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And in doing so you're also preserving pieces of
<v Speaker 1>the living world specific to that place, which you know,
<v Speaker 1>up until then may have been unappreciated and unused, and
<v Speaker 1>also getting cleared the makeway for a fucking raw stress
<v Speaker 1>for less or some other depressing shit AutoZone dollars or whatever.
<v Speaker 2>And most importantly, you're continuing to support all of the
<v Speaker 2>insects and wildlife that depend upon those native species instead
<v Speaker 2>of bringing in this non native version of it and
<v Speaker 2>which they have not evolved with and are not capable
<v Speaker 2>of using.
<v Speaker 1>So so permaculture is kind of from what I gather,
<v Speaker 1>it's just it's about functionality, and it's about kind of, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>mimicking an ecosystem with an emphasis on functioning functionality, but
<v Speaker 1>all of the all of the emphasis is on humans
<v Speaker 1>and how it benefits us, with little to no regard
<v Speaker 1>for how an actual native ecosystem functions, what checks and
<v Speaker 1>bet bolences in an ecosystem are, why invasive plants are invasive,
<v Speaker 1>et cetera. If they could just instead of like kicking
<v Speaker 1>and screaming and doing mental gymnastics to ignore all of that,
<v Speaker 1>if they could just try to embrace it a little
<v Speaker 1>bit and study it and understand it native plant functionality
<v Speaker 1>and why native is you know, how it differs from
<v Speaker 1>invasive and et cetera. And why plants like kudzho are
<v Speaker 1>invasive here but not in Asia, and why plants like
<v Speaker 1>prickly pair are invasive in Australia but not here. If
<v Speaker 1>they could just get that down, it might be it
<v Speaker 1>might be a pretty cool system. But they're resistant to
<v Speaker 1>change right now, and that's what kind of blows my mind.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean they're defensive, which is normal and you know,
<v Speaker 2>but also also you know, prevents you from actually learning
<v Speaker 2>and growing. When you're just defensive, you got to like
<v Speaker 2>try try to open up and listen and consider maybe
<v Speaker 2>maybe what I am doing is causing harm because the
<v Speaker 2>problem is that people have good intentions, right, They always
<v Speaker 2>have good intentions, and then they get defensive when someone
<v Speaker 2>says what you're doing is actually causing harm, when.
<v Speaker 3>In reality it's like it's oh, you know there.
<v Speaker 2>It is inevitable that you will do things with good
<v Speaker 2>intentions and an accidentally cause harm. That happens, and it
<v Speaker 2>doesn't mean you're a bad person.
<v Speaker 3>Pay to do that.
<v Speaker 2>We've all done shit like that, We've all made made mistakes.
<v Speaker 2>You can just accept that you know new knowledge and say, oh, well,
<v Speaker 2>now that I know, I can do differently. But when
<v Speaker 2>you just drag your put your heels in and you know,
<v Speaker 2>refuse to listen or gain new information, it's a real
<v Speaker 2>it's a it's a real toxic situation.
<v Speaker 1>I just for me and I guess we could wrap
<v Speaker 1>this up in like ten minutes or so. I want
<v Speaker 1>to talk about that Dowall Ryan book because that's some
<v Speaker 1>of the silliest shit I've encountered. And I know you
<v Speaker 1>actually read read pretty far, like.
<v Speaker 2>The first couple chapters because a friend of mine who
<v Speaker 2>I care about in respect and he was in joke permaculture,
<v Speaker 2>gave it to me and wanted me to read it.
<v Speaker 2>And so you know, I'm like, I know this is
<v Speaker 2>gonna be bullshits really quick.
<v Speaker 1>It's the book is called Beyond the War on Invasive
<v Speaker 1>Species and it's about by dow O'Ryan, which is was
<v Speaker 1>a unit. Someone asked me like, oh, is that an
<v Speaker 1>Asian lady? And I was like, no, it's like a
<v Speaker 1>white woman from Portland. No, no offense. I'm just saying
<v Speaker 1>it fits again. All this ship fits the bill. It's
<v Speaker 1>like se predictable. It's like you just stereotypes anyway, So
<v Speaker 1>so you read the book, so what what what.
<v Speaker 3>Are I did read the whole book. I read the
<v Speaker 3>first couple.
<v Speaker 1>Of Yeah, that's a tall order, and immediately.
<v Speaker 2>The first example that she used was like this anecdote.
<v Speaker 2>You know, again, this is not based on science. You know,
<v Speaker 2>these are based on kind of anecdotes. And she was
<v Speaker 2>antidote is like a spiritual antidote, like would make me
<v Speaker 2>not want to puke. She she was talking about Spartana alternifolio,
<v Speaker 2>which is a coastal marsh grass that you know, had
<v Speaker 2>invaded this area I can't remember, in the coastal northeast,
<v Speaker 2>and how it eventually ended up kind of you know,
<v Speaker 2>balancing itself out and stopped being invasive. But what she
<v Speaker 2>didn't say is that Spartana alternifolia is native to the
<v Speaker 2>US and native just you know, a couple few hundred
<v Speaker 2>miles south of where it was introduced. So this is
<v Speaker 2>just nearly a range expansion. It's still interacting with all
<v Speaker 2>of the same checks and balances. And so when I read,
<v Speaker 2>as soon as I saw her using Spartina plerofolio as
<v Speaker 2>an example, I was like, this is a native plant,
<v Speaker 2>this is not an invasive plant. This would be considered
<v Speaker 2>like an you know as range expansion or an introduction.
<v Speaker 2>But it misses the whole concept of what a native
<v Speaker 2>ecosystem is.
<v Speaker 1>And it was it was probably and when you zoom out,
<v Speaker 1>you know enough, you see, Okay, this thing was probably native.
<v Speaker 1>It's probably occurred there five hundred thousand years ago before
<v Speaker 1>climate change and the you know drying of the plesisine,
<v Speaker 1>the cooling and drying on the placing whatever. But that's
<v Speaker 1>another thing that people say, like, well, how far back
<v Speaker 1>do you have to go a tie until tough native.
<v Speaker 1>It's well, it's not about time, it's about functionality, and
<v Speaker 1>it's not just about a certain species. It's about the
<v Speaker 1>whole lineage, like the clade. And of course there's exceptions
<v Speaker 1>to it, but you know, like in the in concrete body,
<v Speaker 1>that's what I talk about. It's talking about the ecosystems
<v Speaker 1>for the most part. And there are exceptions like coast
<v Speaker 1>to coast, uh, you know, invasion like something on the
<v Speaker 1>west coast might behave invasive on the east like some
<v Speaker 1>loop and species or vice versa for rabiniusu to Acasia.
<v Speaker 1>But for the most part, these ecosystems it's it's isolation,
<v Speaker 1>and that's like a key understanding of how speciation works, isolation.
<v Speaker 1>But there's none of that, like none of the perma
<v Speaker 1>culture people seem to have any of that, Like what
<v Speaker 1>causes news.
<v Speaker 2>Nobody's taught that, which is a huge issue, you know,
<v Speaker 2>And so they're taught like a very kind of dumbed
<v Speaker 2>down version of how ecosystems function, and you don't get
<v Speaker 2>the full understanding of how these things work. And to
<v Speaker 2>compare spartana to like an invasive to you know, Emperada,
<v Speaker 2>Cylindrica coh and grass, you know, like which is also
<v Speaker 2>which is invasive, And I would never see I would
<v Speaker 2>never call spartana altern fully invasive, although it might have
<v Speaker 2>invaded that area in this range expansion, right, or it
<v Speaker 2>might have been introduced or whatever, but it's still functionally
<v Speaker 2>within the same host of species. It has still many
<v Speaker 2>of the same relationships that keep it in check, whereas Emperada,
<v Speaker 2>which is introduced from a tire entirely different continent, has
<v Speaker 2>none of those existing relationships, and so spreads completely unchecked.
<v Speaker 1>Right, rather than being separated by when was the last
<v Speaker 1>time sportina occurred there? What fifty thousand years ago hundred
<v Speaker 1>who knows, but it's recent, it's not the lineage is
<v Speaker 1>on the continent and not that far away versus you know,
<v Speaker 1>ten to forty million years of separation, you know, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>why do you think there's you know, why do you
<v Speaker 1>think Australia is so bad with invasive species because it's
<v Speaker 1>been separated from the rest of the world for fifty
<v Speaker 1>million fucking years. It's it's it's a direct correlation between
<v Speaker 1>time and distance. There's multiple factors, and not every non
<v Speaker 1>native is an invasive, but every invasive is a non native.
<v Speaker 1>It's crazy to me. I mean, go ahead.
<v Speaker 2>And that's the thing is that each invasive speces has
<v Speaker 2>to be dealt with on a case by case basis,
<v Speaker 2>because each invasive species or even non native species introduced
<v Speaker 2>and spreading in wild areas is not going to become
<v Speaker 2>an issue in the same way that something like cog
<v Speaker 2>and grass becomes. Right, So there's so much complexity to
<v Speaker 2>it and it gets simplified on both sides of the spectrum.
<v Speaker 2>Right there are native plant purists that are like, no
<v Speaker 2>non native plant. You know, you can't plant Spartana alternifolia
<v Speaker 2>over here because it's native.
<v Speaker 3>Fifty miles south of here.
<v Speaker 1>You know, it's only want local ecotype.
<v Speaker 2>And then there are people on the other side of
<v Speaker 2>the spectrum which is like, no, no, plant is invasive.
<v Speaker 2>You know, all plants have this right to exist. No, no,
<v Speaker 2>and when in reality it's this in between right, and
<v Speaker 2>it's a case by case basis, you know, it's I mean,
<v Speaker 2>I work with Terrea texafolia, and there have been all
<v Speaker 2>of these restoration conservation projects which are moving this plant
<v Speaker 2>further north because they think it will do better further north,
<v Speaker 2>when in reality, the reason that it's declined down here
<v Speaker 2>in its native habitat is because of an introduced fungal pathogen.
<v Speaker 2>And when they're moving that tree to try to save it,
<v Speaker 2>they're spreading this introduced fungal pathogen too other grin or
<v Speaker 2>a further north. And so it's like even trying to
<v Speaker 2>save one species of plant. You know, every time you
<v Speaker 2>move a plant, you're moving other things with it.
<v Speaker 3>It's it's so complex.
<v Speaker 2>It's just so much more complex than we can even
<v Speaker 2>begin to comprehend, like our understanding.
<v Speaker 1>The other thing that you hear people say though, the
<v Speaker 1>other thing. And I when I was and this all
<v Speaker 1>came up because I was in Nuevo Leone, and these
<v Speaker 1>beautiful oak forests at like six thousand feet and there's
<v Speaker 1>s photolists everywhere, as photous fistulosis, which is a Mediterranean
<v Speaker 1>member of the alo family. And I was down in
<v Speaker 1>twenty nineteen. My friend Carlos mentioned it. He's like, this
<v Speaker 1>is a fucking horrible invasive plant for us, but I
<v Speaker 1>didn't see that much. And then just where I was now,
<v Speaker 1>it was fucking everywhere. Like it wasn't just hitting pasture
<v Speaker 1>land or like abandoned pasture lands. It was hitting like
<v Speaker 1>fucking pinion forest, you know, or like it wasn't as
<v Speaker 1>dominant because there wasn't as much sunlight, but it was
<v Speaker 1>still there. It was clearly everywhere. It's you know, and
<v Speaker 1>so they you meet these invasion biology deniers, you're like, wow,
<v Speaker 1>at all lay attacks disturbed areas well, every ecosystem has,
<v Speaker 1>Disturbance is a part of every fucking ecosystem. And not
<v Speaker 1>only that, but you know what also hits disturbed areas
<v Speaker 1>is native pioneer species. And you know what also tends
<v Speaker 1>to be a lot more diverse and beneficial to the
<v Speaker 1>life around it. Disturbed areas that have been hit or
<v Speaker 1>been you know, colonized by native pioneer species. So to
<v Speaker 1>say that it's just disturbance, it's well, duh, it's a
<v Speaker 1>part of any ecosystem you clear, you clear land away
<v Speaker 1>for something, it's a blank canvas. New shit's gonna move in.
<v Speaker 1>That doesn't mean anything, like you'd rather you prefer to
<v Speaker 1>have native plant species there rather than ones that have
<v Speaker 1>cheat codes, because there's no insect or fung in this
<v Speaker 1>ecosystem that takes them down, you know, whereas like they
<v Speaker 1>might behave over there. And of course, you know, then
<v Speaker 1>they say the xenophobia thing. They're like, oh, it's xenophobia,
<v Speaker 1>it's eugenics. Shit, got it's just the fucking arguments, just
<v Speaker 1>the dumb shit. That's That's like a maddeningly stupid take.
<v Speaker 1>You're like, well, that's not xenophobia because some of our
<v Speaker 1>some of my favorite native plants are invasive as hell
<v Speaker 1>in Europe, you know, Like I've been to blue gum
<v Speaker 1>eucalyptus forests in Tasmania. They're fucking incredible, But when I
<v Speaker 1>see it forming monocultures in California, they're boring and depressing
<v Speaker 1>and there's nothing there. Like I saw a redwood forest
<v Speaker 1>in New Zealand, and it was so bizarre because it
<v Speaker 1>was it wasn't a redwood forest. It was there was
<v Speaker 1>nothing else growing there. There wasn't like all the cool
<v Speaker 1>shit you see in a redwood forest in California. None
<v Speaker 1>of that was there. It was just a monoculture and
<v Speaker 1>it was dead. It's like, you know, it wasn't the
<v Speaker 1>cool potocarp temperate rainforest you see in New Zealand. So
<v Speaker 1>but yeah, I mean I had this, go go ahead,
<v Speaker 1>go ahead, I'll.
<v Speaker 2>One of the things I really just want to impress
<v Speaker 2>is that a lot of people defend invasive plants because
<v Speaker 2>they see some type of animal or something using it,
<v Speaker 2>and they think, well, see, look at this. This is
<v Speaker 2>being used and this or it's doing the same thing
<v Speaker 2>that some other native plant does, and so it is
<v Speaker 2>performing the same functions and we can just let it
<v Speaker 2>be and it will fill that role.
<v Speaker 3>And maybe in some cases that does happen, but not
<v Speaker 3>most of the time, And because.
<v Speaker 2>We don't unders fully understand the complexity of these interacting organisms.
<v Speaker 2>And one of the cases in Florida is hydrilla, which
<v Speaker 2>is an emerg submerged aquatic plant that occurs in many
<v Speaker 2>of our waterways now, and it grows excessively fast, like
<v Speaker 2>unbelievably fast. And yet when our you know, when the
<v Speaker 2>Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission treats this plant, you know,
<v Speaker 2>with herbicides in our waterways, the best fishermen and the
<v Speaker 2>doug hunters get all up in arms because the ducks
<v Speaker 2>and the bas use that plant, and they think, well,
<v Speaker 2>see the not the native submerged aquatic plants are gone now,
<v Speaker 2>and so why don't we let this hydrilla occur here
<v Speaker 2>and play the role that it plays for providing protection
<v Speaker 2>and food for fish and for ducks. But what they
<v Speaker 2>don't understand is that it doesn't stop growing, and it
<v Speaker 2>keeps growing until it grows so densely that it becomes
<v Speaker 2>an anaerobic matte rotting mass and kills everything. And so
<v Speaker 2>if you don't treat it, it literally becomes like a
<v Speaker 2>death site, like a dead lake. Can't it's myopia, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's short sightedness and lack of ecological understanding, and.
<v Speaker 1>That's and that's excusable. But again the ignorant that the
<v Speaker 1>arrogance though, like when you tell someone and they're like, no,
<v Speaker 1>like I just like this guy I got into an
<v Speaker 1>argument with the fucking common seconds, stay out of it.
<v Speaker 1>But anyway, and you know, he's like, cite a paper
<v Speaker 1>for me on on how s photalist fistulosis is invasive.
<v Speaker 1>So okay, fucking it was easy. I went on Google scholar,
<v Speaker 1>I found one and this was in South Africa. There's
<v Speaker 1>members of the AlOH family in South Africa. That means
<v Speaker 1>there's probably checks and balances for s photalists too, or
<v Speaker 1>there should be. But guess what. It's listed as a
<v Speaker 1>like horribly invasive weed down there too. So I mean
<v Speaker 1>that's just test it's just testament to how bad this is.
<v Speaker 1>And certainly I haven't seen an invasion like this, like
<v Speaker 1>a species behaving like this, an invasive species behaving like
<v Speaker 1>this in a while. I mean, it is, it's comparable
<v Speaker 1>to kudzu. It's fucking horrible the way it is in
<v Speaker 1>northern you know, mid elevation Mexico. It's fucking insane. And
<v Speaker 1>so I sent them the pay. I posted the paper
<v Speaker 1>and then I you know, took direct quotes from it
<v Speaker 1>and like, yes, we recommend this species for you know,
<v Speaker 1>list one a of like top invasive plant species in
<v Speaker 1>South Africa. And then he's like, well that just says
<v Speaker 1>it's invasive. That doesn't say how it's detrimental to the ecosystem.
<v Speaker 1>And I It's like, what the fuck. What the fuck
<v Speaker 1>do you think invasive means?
<v Speaker 2>Man, Like, it's yeah, to be invasive, it has to
<v Speaker 2>be categorized as causing harm in in natural areas.
<v Speaker 1>It's well, it says that in the description. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>but he wanted like, well, what exactly does it do?
<v Speaker 1>It's like Jesus Christ, man like, don't you're just being
<v Speaker 1>fucking You're just being a dick. Now, you're just being
<v Speaker 1>like it's it out compete, Like what what about limited resource?
<v Speaker 2>Mind?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? I just well, well, yeah, an ego probably too
<v Speaker 1>competing for limited resources in a closed ecosystem, Like what
<v Speaker 1>the fuck? What don't you get like out competing, you know,
<v Speaker 1>there's only like so much food, you know, light, whatever,
<v Speaker 1>nutrients available, you know, root space available, Like what doesn't
<v Speaker 1>every every spot you see an invasive like mullin or
<v Speaker 1>s photolist, this is a place where there could be
<v Speaker 1>something else, but there's not because they outcompete. There's the
<v Speaker 1>roots overtake. They don't know, there's no insects that keep
<v Speaker 1>these things in check. There's no fundy to keep these
<v Speaker 1>things in check, and all that logic checks out. When
<v Speaker 1>you think about it, you're like, oh, that makes sense.
<v Speaker 1>I get it. It's the same way you think about
<v Speaker 1>like the way a machine functions. I get it. So
<v Speaker 1>what what is so hard?
<v Speaker 2>Like?
<v Speaker 1>Why is why the staunching?
<v Speaker 2>Do you think One of the issues too, is that
<v Speaker 2>people don't understand evolution and evolutionary interactions within ecosystems, and
<v Speaker 2>so they think that, you know, one hundred two hundred years,
<v Speaker 2>that things will balance out and that this plant will
<v Speaker 2>now become essentially native, right, that's I think most people
<v Speaker 2>really do think that. They're like, oh, well then the
<v Speaker 2>bees and the and the plants will all adapt to
<v Speaker 2>it in a few hundred years.
<v Speaker 1>Wish it only took that long.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, But they don't understand that that's like a
<v Speaker 2>teeny tiny drop in the bucket of a pollutionary time,
<v Speaker 2>and it means it's worthless.
<v Speaker 1>And I always like making the comparison to when they're like, well,
<v Speaker 1>you're never going to get it all, so why try it.
<v Speaker 1>It's like, Okay, well, let's take the cancer analogy, Like
<v Speaker 1>there are leukemias that are completely manageable if you take
<v Speaker 1>a pill once a day, but if you don't, they're
<v Speaker 1>going to fucking kill you within a few years. Whereas
<v Speaker 1>if you take a pill once a day, you can
<v Speaker 1>live for thirty or forty years. Would you tell that
<v Speaker 1>person you're never You're never gonna be able to get
<v Speaker 1>it all out of your system. Would you tell that person,
<v Speaker 1>fuck it, don't bother? Like, that's that's eradication is not
<v Speaker 1>the point, genius. It's it's minimizing biodiversity loss and extinction.
<v Speaker 1>And like, why why are you advocating for the homogenization
<v Speaker 1>of nature? It's fucking one.
<v Speaker 2>Because at some point in you know, thousands, hundreds of
<v Speaker 2>thousands of years, things will adapt to this, you know, eventually, right,
<v Speaker 2>But in the meantime, what you end up with is extinctions,
<v Speaker 2>is extinctions of plants, other plants and animals and butterflies
<v Speaker 2>and bees and all sorts of things start to go extinctly.
<v Speaker 3>We are seeing that happening now, you know.
<v Speaker 2>Songbird populations are drastically declining, Insect populations are drastically declining,
<v Speaker 2>and people don't realize that a lot of the that
<v Speaker 2>the role of invasive plants has a major part to
<v Speaker 2>play in those species to college.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yes, smothering an ecosystem and preventing a bird's food
<v Speaker 1>source from growing, or an insects food source for growing,
<v Speaker 1>and then that insect goes on the feed. How are
<v Speaker 1>many bird species? I mean, I see you could see
<v Speaker 1>that in South Texas with buffalograss. I've literally seen this
<v Speaker 1>every fucking ecosystem I've gone to. I've seen invasive species
<v Speaker 1>doing the same thing, different casts of species, some of
<v Speaker 1>which I like, doing the same thing.
<v Speaker 2>And there are things happening that we aren't seen too.
<v Speaker 2>Like a bird is eating the berries of some new
<v Speaker 2>plant that you planted in your yard, and they might
<v Speaker 2>like it, and they you know, generations of these birds.
<v Speaker 3>Might be eating it.
<v Speaker 2>But we don't know the effects of the chemicals of
<v Speaker 2>those berries on this plant on this bird, and how
<v Speaker 2>that could be harming the bird over periods of time.
<v Speaker 3>You know, we don't know what.
<v Speaker 2>Types of complex cascades happened because you introduce one new
<v Speaker 2>plant to your yard. That's why I always say, like
<v Speaker 2>it's always safest to just plant a native plant if
<v Speaker 2>you care about plants and animals and ecosystems and your
<v Speaker 2>own and own who you know, human survival and at
<v Speaker 2>all all, Like planting native is really the safest bed
<v Speaker 2>there are.
<v Speaker 1>In there for so long. It's so if there's something
<v Speaker 1>wrong could have if something detrimental could have happen, it
<v Speaker 1>would have happened already. And maybe it did years ago.
<v Speaker 1>You know what, the water has settled now and now
<v Speaker 1>it's like an equilibrium.
<v Speaker 2>And yeah, and there are and I'm not like a
<v Speaker 2>native plant purist, like there are non native edible plants
<v Speaker 2>that you know, have been planted and grown for a
<v Speaker 2>long time here and they you know, originate from from
<v Speaker 2>regions that have very different climates, and so they are
<v Speaker 2>they don't spread as a great you know, aggressively or invasively,
<v Speaker 2>Like citrus in Florida is a pretty safe plant to plant.
<v Speaker 2>You can eat it and enjoy it. It's not going
<v Speaker 2>to be useful really to most of our flora and fauna,
<v Speaker 2>but you can eat it and know that most of
<v Speaker 2>it is not going to spread invasively, although some of
<v Speaker 2>them do spread it also.
<v Speaker 1>Like I'm not trying to make a fucking religion out
<v Speaker 1>of it, Like any dogma is faulty. If you're one
<v Speaker 1>hundred percent like extremist about anything, it's faulty I was
<v Speaker 1>planting fucking sausage trees ka Gellia africana down here in
<v Speaker 1>South Texas. They die back in a freeze, but you know,
<v Speaker 1>and they're native to fucking equatorial Africa. But they're fucking
<v Speaker 1>dope plants and they get a really cool inflorescence and
<v Speaker 1>they're not invasive. If it was an invasive plant, I wouldn't,
<v Speaker 1>you know, I'd say I love that. But yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>can't really plant that here. It's going to fuck up
<v Speaker 1>the ecosystem, you know. But it's not a religion. It's
<v Speaker 1>not like that. It's not you know, I just there's again,
<v Speaker 1>it's functionality and reason with all this, and I can
<v Speaker 1>forgive people for not for not knowing this stuff. We're
<v Speaker 1>all severed from the world, the living world, you know.
<v Speaker 1>We all grow up in the same shitty circumstances of
<v Speaker 1>fucking asphalt and consumerism and lack of identity and just
<v Speaker 1>everyone being fucking miserable all the time and trapping their cars.
<v Speaker 1>But when you when you show people, when you show people,
<v Speaker 1>you know, oh, this is the way you show them
<v Speaker 1>the logic, and they still they can refuse to look
<v Speaker 1>at it and cling to what they're goods that's when
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, man, forget you. I don't have time for
<v Speaker 1>this shit, you know, and a.
<v Speaker 2>Perma culture is coming in and like clear, I mean
<v Speaker 2>they're fifteen acres of like hickory and oak, and you know,
<v Speaker 2>all of these edible plants to plant what they call
<v Speaker 2>a permaculture, edible landscape food for esteta.
<v Speaker 1>Oh that's the thing that's like, you know, I was
<v Speaker 1>knocking you for making a colonialism markment for but it
<v Speaker 1>reminds me of like some fucking yuppie moving to a
<v Speaker 1>neighborhood that's exactly and being like, hey, data'd be cool.
<v Speaker 1>It's like an avocado toast, like coffee beistro here that
<v Speaker 1>no one in the neighborhood can afford. Fuck you guys,
<v Speaker 1>I like this stuff. It's pretty cool. It's my neighborhood now.
<v Speaker 1>And then just being like, whatever the fuck I want
<v Speaker 1>is what's important. Fuck you guys. You know, oh, you
<v Speaker 1>can't afford to live here anymore, like five ten years
<v Speaker 1>down the line. Not my problem. Go fucking move the
<v Speaker 1>you know, the bleak suburbs or whatever. I like this rustic,
<v Speaker 1>you know, urban neighborhood. It's the same shit. It's the
<v Speaker 1>same shit. I saw have in American cities fifteen to
<v Speaker 1>twenty years ago. It's crazy.
<v Speaker 2>And as humans, you know, we evolved eating plants seasonally,
<v Speaker 2>we evolved eating a lot of you know, native plants
<v Speaker 2>that have that don't have that do do have a
<v Speaker 2>lot of the chemicals that they're you know, cultivated hybridized
<v Speaker 2>versions no longer have because they've been cultivated out of them.
<v Speaker 2>So like we are likely missing a lot, you know,
<v Speaker 2>in our diet that we could be getting from native
<v Speaker 2>edible wild plants that would be beneficial to us. Like
<v Speaker 2>a lot of those bitter compounds that might not make
<v Speaker 2>them not as tasty, can actually be very.
<v Speaker 1>Bad, right well, but also some of them can be
<v Speaker 1>bread out. I mean that's why, like you know, well.
<v Speaker 3>There definitely can be bred out. But I don't know,
<v Speaker 3>I just it's like.
<v Speaker 2>I don't want to put oak trees all over Florida,
<v Speaker 2>and if so few people recognize that those acorns are
<v Speaker 2>edible and can make delish as flour and bread.
<v Speaker 1>You know, you know, you'll go to the Korean grocery store,
<v Speaker 1>you'll see acorn flower in there.
<v Speaker 3>Exactly.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they sell quirks Virginiana flower in Japan, and we
<v Speaker 2>have it growing all over.
<v Speaker 3>The place, and we fucking don't you know, don't get.
<v Speaker 1>Well, that's a huge that's a huge opportunity too. That's
<v Speaker 1>being missed out on with all this, with with the
<v Speaker 1>way permaculture is now, is like developing and breeding local
<v Speaker 1>native plants, you know. For again, it's like the same thing.
<v Speaker 1>You grow a thousand ceilings phenotypic variation, A couple come
<v Speaker 1>out differently, You pick those, you breed those few generations
<v Speaker 1>of that. You could probably make some fucking I mean,
<v Speaker 1>that's how all modern crops were invented to begin with.
<v Speaker 1>You know, you do that with some native plants, you
<v Speaker 1>could create some dope shit. But no one's doing it
<v Speaker 1>because they're trying to grow ship that they bought in
<v Speaker 1>a fucking you know, online from nine thousand miles away.
<v Speaker 1>That's that evolved nine thousand miles away, but it's being
<v Speaker 1>grown in like the whatever, the permaculture nursery, what the fuck?
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, man, I just but it has shut
<v Speaker 2>down when I hear it's sustainably sourced label and then
<v Speaker 2>they feel good about themselves.
<v Speaker 1>I just shut down when I hear that, like when
<v Speaker 1>I hear the words food force, because of all this
<v Speaker 1>ship and I when I hear the words food forest,
<v Speaker 1>I'm just like, oh God, it's like a funk.
<v Speaker 2>When I hear the word food forest, I think about
<v Speaker 2>the forests that naturally are all around me.
<v Speaker 3>These are food forest.
<v Speaker 1>Being flaked.
<v Speaker 3>Ecosystems are permaculture.
<v Speaker 1>Someone sticks like a fucking sewing needle that's been held
<v Speaker 1>over a flame into my urethra. And I'm listening to
<v Speaker 1>like Michael Bolton blaring on the speakers, and there's like
<v Speaker 1>a fucking some like clean cut like dude, like food forests,
<v Speaker 1>Like that's what I fucking am. I go, I go deep.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I really like, dude, a food forest, like integrative, holistic, biodynamic, dude, Like, God,
<v Speaker 1>shut the f off.
<v Speaker 2>All of these things are what our native ecosystems are already.
<v Speaker 3>We don't have to recreate that exactly exactly.
<v Speaker 1>You're trying to fix thing this.
<v Speaker 3>Night, a permaculture food forest out in the national forest.
<v Speaker 1>So that's what the perma culture lists I do. Rather
<v Speaker 1>than studying education, rather than studying, rather than studying the
<v Speaker 1>living machine that's that occurs in their region and was
<v Speaker 1>built there over eons, they're trying to fucking fix something
<v Speaker 1>that's not broken to begin with, you know. So anyway,
<v Speaker 1>all right, well thanks for dad. I hopefully you guys
<v Speaker 1>got some monte. That's all forty minutes. It's not too bad,
<v Speaker 1>but uh, you know, I'm gonna get a bunch of
<v Speaker 1>angry letters like fuck, you know, like perma culture, dude,
<v Speaker 1>my food forest. Anyway, all right, well thanks, I appreciate
<v Speaker 1>that everyone else have a grocery day. Go fuck yourself
<v Speaker 1>by