Coming of Age at the End of Nature

The essay from Coming of Age at the End of Nature that I reflected on the most was An Orange County Almanac by Jason M. Brown. This essay mainly focused on the idea of invasive species, the example that is used by the author is the Eucalyptus trees inhabiting California. He compares the language that is used to convince people of the removal of nonnative plant species to anti immigration language. This is something that I had never really thought about before and it made me question my past experiences with working with certain organizations. In high school through the club Acting to Protect the Environment I would volunteer with organizations that would focus on the removal of invasive species and the planting of native species. During that time I did not have the tools to think critically about what I was doing and supporting therefore I did not question the work and only saw it in a positive light.

It's very interesting that the language used in both situations is very similar because currently when we think of immigrants we think of people who are from latin american who are actually native to this side of the world. Therefore that would make Europeans the invasive species that needs to be remove but that is not what is being said by those who are against immigration. This makes me wonder who decides what it means to be native and what it means to be invasive. There are very many Americans currently who think they have some sort of right over this land, end though their ancestors have only been living here for hundreds of years, as opposed to thousands of years.

This essay also provides evidence that the Eucalyptus tree is actually not incredibly damaging to the ecosystem. It states on page 72:

“Eucalyptus trees have not caused the extinction of a single species; while the trees have had a negative impact on some birds whose beaks are sealed shut by Eucalyptus sap, they also provide critical winter habitat to migrating monarch butterflies and other native species that have now adapted to them”

This statement makes me want to do research about the impacts that nonnative plant species have on ecosystems. It would be incredible if similar evidence was found for the majority of nonnative plant species.