Yale360:
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“Author Emma Marris and Macalester College biologist Mark Davis, among others, have pointed out that only a small subset of “alien” species wreak damage on already resident species, and that the categorization of wild creatures as either “native” or “alien” obscures as much as it elucidates... Now, a growing number of scientists say that conservation policies based on the native-alien dichotomy could actually threaten biodiversity. Today’s climate-driven range shifts are “one of the only solutions for species to adapt to climate change,” says ecologist Nathalie Pettorelli, who studies the impact of global environmental changes on biodiversity at the Institute of Zoology in London. Ensuring that wild species can make life-saving movements and establish self-sustaining populations in new habitats, while also protecting already-resident species, will require new ways of evaluating species — not just on their origins and historical value to society but on their ecological functions and how they can contribute to the novel ecosystems of the future.
For some long-time critics of the native-alien paradigm in conservation, it’s the fundamental principle of evaluating species based on their origins that needs to go. “Whether because of climate or because people move them, species need to be evaluated on their own effects,” says Macalester College’s Davis, “and not on whether they are natives or new natives or non-natives or non-natives moved by humans.” Critics such as Davis essentially call for the dissolution of invasion biology and restoration biology as they’ve been traditionally defined. “I don’t see the value of keeping those distinctions,” he says.”
Invasive biologists’ value judgments cannot be supported by science (i.e., values are not in the realm of science). Labeling species as native/nonnative, invasive/noninvasive, good/bad often limits pragmatic management. Categorization leads to prejudice, prejudice leads to contempt, contempt leads to hate, and hate leads to the dark side. We need to be pragmatic and binary thinking is destructive.
