Invasive and Introduced Plants and Animals 1st Edition

This is a collection of articles written by invasion biologists as well as scientists who are critical of invasion biology. It attempts to present the entire spectrum of opinion on the debate about ecological "restorations," a debate that gets progressively noisier with no resolution in sight. The scientific underpinning of these projects is eroding rapidly, but this book brings something new to the debate. It invites us to consider the very important question of whether this is a scientific or a public policy debate.Ultimately, the alteration of our public lands is not a scientific decision. It is a public policy decision. In a democracy this means that the public must decide. In the vast majority of cases, the public has not been given the opportunity to make the decision because the managers of our public lands have been making these decisions for us. They do so, by claiming that it is a scientific, not a public policy decision and that their expertise puts them in a position to impose their will on the public. The authors of the book challenge this claim: "Yet in interventions conservation practice hides behind a veneer of pseudoscience and certainly challenges democratic processes." Hear, hear!!! Thank you for this astute observation, which we see played out repeatedly in the San Francisco Bay Area.