Miller, James H.; Manning, Steven T.; Enloe, Stephen F. 2010. A management guide for invasive plants in southern forests. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS–131. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 120 p.
Three overarching concepts provide powerful ways to get organized and counter invasive plant takeovers: adaptation, collaboration, and restoration.
- Adaptation, or adaptive resource management, generally refers to a community shared process of self-conscious learning by doing. The process involves goal setting, gaining experience and research findings, and monitoring actions and outcomes with rapid incorporation of new knowledge into refined goals and actions. It is a corporate cyclical process of learning, adapting, and managing. It is a process of optimal decisionmaking in the face of uncertainty, with an aim of reducing uncertainty over time by monitoring results of actions and careful adjustments to improve outcomes. We do not have all the solutions for fighting the invasion of nonnative plant species, but, by pooling our information resources, we can learn together how to improve our approaches and treatments. We must make full use of print and Web resources, and we can become even more effective by paying attention to new and forthcoming information(see “Resources Information” on page xxx).
- Collaboration with adjacent and area landowners is essential because invasive plant infestations most often occur across ownership and political boundaries. For greatest effectiveness, we must develop and use communication networks to link local, county, State, and regional programs.
- Restoration of infested lands to healthy and productive ecosystems must be our guiding objective. We only can be successful with eradication, control, and containment of invasive plants through the establishment of desirable and useful plants that protect soil, produce needed resources and habitats, and safeguard our lands from a resurgence of invasive plants. We must identify, establish, and culture resistant and resilient plant communities on rehabilitated and restored lands, and then we must monitor these communities for the first possible signs of returning invasive plants. Restoration approaches for most invasive plants are just being developed and will require adaptive management cycles to perfect.
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