Concerning Indigenous Bayou Entanglements
The watersheds of Houston’s complex bayou ecosystem are home to combinations of indigenous and non-native plants and animals. Like our growing understanding of storm and bayou management systems in a post Harvey world, the discourse (artistic/creative, scientific or otherwise) around the subject of what is considered “invasive” versus “native” needs thorough reconsideration.
There are major and qualitative differences between the “invasive” and “non-native” definitions. But there are more precise and alternative terminologies such as “introduced”, “migratory”, “animal seeded” and “spontaneously emerging.” Plant and animals do not devise plans to “invade” new habitats. This is an anthropomorphic perspective. Global climate change or human impacts on the environment transformed entire systems that have impacted wildlife in ways that we are understand too well. When we argue that plants and animals act like us by relying on a limited lexicon, we are imposing our human values on the behavior of flora and fauna.
If we are to reconcile practices of species extrication, evisceration and extermination one should first determine to what level “invasives” and “non-native” are threatening to our biodiversity and changing ecosystems. In other words, which plants and animals are harming the current populations and inventory of “indigenous” species? Can we determine whether or if there exists a co-existence between “native” and “non- indigenous” species? This belie the fact that there are harmful animals. For example: the zebra mussel’s impact on aquatic life; giant Asian snails on humans; and kudzu on plant life. Despite these specific examples, the true impact of many non-native species on the current ecosystem is still undetermined.
We don’t have to look very far or very hard to learn that the entire ecosystem of the bayous are covered in non-native plants and animals. This discover means we have to ask, “Non-native” as of when? 20years ago? 50 years ago? 100 years or a millennium ago? The area we now live in must have looked completely different with greater varieties of plant and animal species than it did before the founding of the metropolis.
In terms of the art making about the bayous, should an art project be advancing the Texas Parks and Wildlife official policy of “eradication” “extermination”, “evisceration” and “discard” in an age of global mass extinction? Ethical considerations must be uppermost when creating bio-art. Art project become suspect when it agrees with wildlife management concepts that are not plant/animal centered experience. Ethical considerations and imperatives should drive our conversations, art works and policy advocacy over the myriad of global environmental and social justice issues.
Another contentious issue worth addressing is the real-world practicality of attempting and eradication of an entire species in Houston. There is plentiful evidence that “non-indigenous” species survive despite the policy of eradicating. Therefore, another question to ask is whether an art project is being ethical and professionally or scientifically correct when it claims that it will eradicate entire species?
One can see there are a multitude of questions and issues that arise during our conversations and debates around definitions and implications of what is considered “native” and “invasive” plants and animals. Another dialog consideration are the complications and practices of human convenience, consumption and disposability, which also drive the forces of ecological and biological transformation. Conversations and debates surrounding human imposition on the “natural” world offer many diverse vantage points to tackle.
Lastly, this pandemic has it very origins on human encroachment and development. Our ecological damages have driven animal species to places where they can transmit viruses and bacteria that were originally separate from modern life. Symbiosis across vast geographies between the human, the flora and fauna life is now a feature of 21st century existence.
Henry G. Sanchez, 2022