At the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Botanical Gardens and
Arboreta, Vancouver, British Columbia, July 3, 1999, Director Peter White
announced the Chapel Hill Thesis and Challenge, a set of principles that
will guide botanical gardens into responsible behavior with regard to
invasive plant pest species. Martin Luther-like, the Thesis was nailed to a
tree (rather than a church door) and photographed for a slide at the
conference.
The principles are:
THE CHAPEL HILL THESIS AND CHALLENGE:
DO NO HARM TO PLANT DIVERSITY
DO NO HARM TO NATURAL AREAS
1. PERFORM RISK ASSESSMENT FOR INTRODUCTIONS
2. REMOVE INVASIVES FROM PLANT COLLECTIONS
3. CONTROL INVASIVES IN NATURAL AREAS
4. DEVELOP NON-INVASIVE AND NATIVE PLANT ALTERNATIVES AND CERTIFY
NON-INVASIVENESS FOR THE TRADE
5. DO NOT DISTRIBUTE SEEDS/PLANTS THAT WILL BE INVASIVE ELSEWHERE
6. EDUCATE THE PUBLIC
7. BECOME PARTNERS WITH CONSERVATION ORGANIZATIONS
These principles were developed at the North Carolina Botanical Garden, the
first or one of the first gardens in North America to establish policies on
invasive exotics (1998) both in terms of
importation and the distribution of seeds and plants that will be invasive
elsewhere. For more information, see below.
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Peter S. White email: pswhite at unc.edu
Department of Biology -- Campus Box 3280
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3280 USA
Biology Phone: 919-962-6939 FAX: 919-962-1625
NCBG Phone: 919-962-0522 FAX: 919-962-3531
Home Phone: 919-967-4926
Web information: www.unc.edu/depts/biology/
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