16h • General discussion
Discursive Essay Practice
Hey, I would greatly appreciate it if you can provide some feedback on attempt at a discursive essay I was assigned for homework, thanks!
Question: Should certain invasive species be completely eradicated?
Essay:
It was 11:27pm, on a Sunday night.
I was hunched shoulder to knee looming over the disordered sprawl of loose unbound papers. The menagerie of pen nibs were lying divorced from their caps underneath the chaos. Nonsensical loops and cursive attempts lay bleak, overlapping the ruled lines in a sorry attempt to form words.
Momentarily, the silence was interrupted by a persistent hum. My eyes twitched as I perceived a mosquito circling the study lamp, attracted by the warm hue. Immediately my first instinct was to swat that Vampiric speck with a resounding SMACK!
Of course after the obligatory shriek of terror.
It is the natural course: when a ‘non-native species’ invades your sanctuary to cause disruption, harm or simply be a nuisance; you erase the problem with extreme prejudice—to restore order.
But as my palm hovered near, a sting of doubt struck. If we decide that this microscopic entity that stains our native ecosystem can simply be resolved through the destruction of its species, are we really the ones who should be deciding what lives or dies?
To what extent do we stop?
The idea of completely eradicating certain invasive species for the benefit of keystone organisms is no foreign concept, the discourse of yes or no isn’t either. As I researched deeper into this seemingly rudimentary question, the debate split into two conflicting stances. There are Ecological Purists, who believe we must deliver the fatal spray to restore the ecosystem to its original state and Novel Ecosystem advocates, who suggest that we have already crossed the threshold, and argue that we should rather learn to evolve & adapt with the consequences of our past,
Since European settlement in the late 19th century, the spread of invasive species and the rising loss of biodiversity has been rampant. According to the National Academy of Sciences, invasive feral predators – cats, rats and foxes and others have contributed to around 60% of bird, mammal and reptile extinctions.
Before we go into the minds of conservationists, we need to know what exactly is eradication in the context of restoration. Science direct states:
- Is the complete removal of every individual of the target species from a location
- restoration occurs after the disturbance is removed and other strategies to recover the habitat are implemented.
In short: this source suggests that eradicating species in the broadest sense is a form of restoration, seen as an equivalent of ending a disturbance within ecological processes.
However, ecological purists strongly advocate to restore an ecosystem to its original balanced state before ill-treatment of ecological integrity. This is evident in:
- Cane toads in Australia were introduced 1935 for pest control. Instead, they snowballed in numbers and poisoned the natives crocodiles & reptiles.
- Kudzu imported from Japan to South America for decoration and soil erosion control. Today, it is known as the plant that ate the south (smothering millions of native plants)
- Rosy Wolfsnail in various pacific & Indian Ocean to control the Giant African Snail. To the chagrin, it instead accelerated the extinction of many unique tree snails.
Thus, even a slight unbalance on one factor can singlehandedly upset the livelihood of a whole community!
I suppose the slight itch and disturbance to my sleep is the least of my worries –
especially when a purring ball of fluff, indifferently nudges its paw across millions of native species, spilling $170 million from the NSW’s economy’s wallet . At most a tube of papaw puts me at a deficit of $3.50
It seems inevitable, whether a purist or not, that a resounding 'yes' to eradication seems enlightened when faced with such staggering loss.
However, I digress.
Humans mirror Invasive species classification: as non-native to an ecosystem; we as mankind essentially colonised the entire globe. It reproduces or spreads rapidly; I do hope a population of 8 billion+ is contested as ‘overpopulated’. Causes ecological or species extinction; We introduce foreign organisms en masse, contaminating every surface — disease, famine, scarcity… You get the picture.
To call humankind invasive, it means acknowledging to a degree our comparability to invasive species. So why would we plot the execution of our own parasitical kin?
One could argue that our preservation is less about the amendment of the ecosphere and more on atonement. In Genesis, humans were exiled from the Garden of Eden for their defiance; perhaps our extremity is a form of resentment towards pests which we view as the serpent that deceives us to the sin of temptation. By villainising the 'invader,’ we justify the twisted regret and therefore entitlement to weed out the original sin and create our own skewed version of paradise.
Admittedly this view is quite extreme and would be arbitrary of me to say it encompasses everyone, nevertheless it's only fair to see the opposing extreme.
To characterise the ‘invader’ solely as the antagonist to defeat is to neglect the messy and permanent reality we have built. Pragmatists note that the overwhelming forces of invasions by non-native species have already occurred and are now the new normal, which puts into perspective the ethicality of killing to preserve. Nature is not constant, but more akin to a delicate web; eliminating a dominant species can trigger a domino effect– a trophic cascade,endorsing the overpopulation of another.
A renowned example is in 2001 following the eradication of feral cats in Macquarie island, the absence of a predator created an incubator for rabbits to claim residence. which led to the loss of native vegetation.
The human race cannot afford to be pessimistic and regress; by contrast, the novel ecosystem embodies the progressive and optimistic nature needed to truly rectify our mistakes, to truly restore Eden. Moreover, humanity is ambiguous in nature; we display the absolute cruelty of racism, discrimination and destructive capabilities in deforestation & pollution to the environment we hold. And simultaneously mainstream our positives, so why shouldn’t we hold invasive species to the same two-faced regard?
In many cases, these species can provide benefits to the keystone organisms– the saltwater crocodile population in the Northern Territory of Australia, since the 1970s plummeted to mere thousands. Nevertheless, the proliferation of feral pigs in their abode provided a sufficient and nutritious food source to the crocodile's newly terrestrial diet, fostering their swift recovery.
“Crocodiles have gone from a population of … probably a few thousand…, to over 100,000 adults…,” Campbell tells the Guardian.
To insist on regressing back to an uncorrupted state is as possible as catching a mosquito after it has already drawn blood.
And so I return to my former question: to what extent do we stop? Do we act as purists and continue to weed out the invasive species until our paradise is restored? Or do we lower our hands and accept the fleeting sting and progress through the novel ecosystem we fabricated? I glanced back at the disordered papers, where a half-finished essay on Hamlet lay carelessly, mirroring the famous existential quote, “To be or not to be…”, I found myself asking-
To kill or not to kill? That is the question.
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Discursive Essay Practice
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