Eradicating Invasive Plants

"The Appalachian Trail Conservancy is taking part in the 14th annual National Public Lands Day on Sept. 29, the largest hands-on day for volunteers working to preserve and protect America’s lands." That's how the article headlined "Trail volunteers to join efforts to weed out invasive species" by Dale Neal in the 15 September 2007 Asheville Citizen Times begins. It describes training given to volunteers who will then be able to do something to ameliorate

"the changes wrought by invasive exotic species of plants, such as habitat destruction, global diversity loss and economic devastation."

A lot of the plants we see out along the Trail -- especially where there has been some human disturbance of the natural system -- are exotic invasives. Sometimes they're so familiar to us, we don't realize that they don't belong and have already crowded out the native plants.

The workday described in the article is in Hot Springs.