Gardening enthusiasts are accessories to the destruction of Australia’s unique environment. To limit the damage, the Australian government must act quickly to ban the sale of at least 80 imported plants that threaten to become unstoppable weeds, according to a report published on 7 March.
The government sinks hundreds of thousands of dollars a year into campaigns to eradicate imported plants that threaten the native environment or agriculture. But many plants that pose an even greater risk are sold in Australia’s garden centres.
“People buy them in good faith, with no intention of damaging the environment,” says Australia’s chief weed scientist, Rachel McFadyen of the Cooperative Research Centre for Australian Weed Management in Brisbane.
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Over 27,000 alien species have been introduced to Australia since European settlement, according to the WWF-commissioned report from Australia’s national research body CSIRO. Around 10 per cent have gone feral, threatening over 50 native plants with extinction.
“Many more [weeds] are in gardens waiting to jump the fence and take off,” says report author Richard Groves of CSIRO Plant Industry in Canberra.
