The environmental invaders just keep coming

Chenango County is being "invaded," and, no, I'm not just referring to the gas companies that are actively exploring and seeking natural gas here. Rather, these invaders come from afar, from such places as China, Japan, Europe and Africa. Some have been here for many years, while some are relatively new arrivals, environmentally speaking.

How they arrived here can largely be attributed to public ignorance, sloppy federal agricultural and markets inspections of imports (or no inspection at all), and the change to a fully "global economy" where fewer of the goods we buy today are manufactured, produced or grown within our borders. It's estimated that more than 50,000 invasive species now exist in the U.S., and many of these call New York and Chenango County their "adopted home."

One of the latest is the Emerald Ash Borer, first discovered in Michigan in 2002, and which was recently discovered in Pennsylvania forests, just miles south of the New York border. The insect, an invasive species from Asia, attacks Ash trees, which account for about eight percent of all N.Y. trees. If this reminds some of you of the great Dutch Elm Disease that wiped out nearly all American elm trees in the United States by the mid-twentieth century, it should, for the same is apt to happen with our elm trees now.

Of course there's been a long list of invasive insects that have arrived here over the years – the Gypsy Moth, Pine Beetle, African Honey Bee, Mediterranean Fruit Fly, Formosan Subterranean Termite, Asian Longhorned Beetle, Sirex Woodwasp. None of these are native to America but primarily arrived in imported wood products. All threaten our native trees and forests.

Of course insects aren't the only aliens to have migrated here – thanks to a helping hand from humans. Purple Loosestrife, Eurasian Watermilfoil, Knotweed, Giant Hogweed, English Ivy, Japanese Honeysuckle, Kudza, the Ground Ivy that has invaded so many lawns, and even the now-common Wild Mustard we see dominating in fallow fields are all invaders from outside our continent.

In many ways, the arrival of the "global economy" which sees materials and products whisking from one continent to another may have helped to level the world's economic balance, but it has also come with a price, and that is the imbalance of natural ecosystems when alien species – many of which have no natural enemies in their newfound homes – take root. Doubters may claim that the evolutionary process will solve this problem by the alien species gradually reaching an unnatural climatic population level and then either declining in numbers or becoming extinct. But in the meantime, what is the effect on native species?