Valuing Land – One View

by Karen Wegner Porter, ’62

Here is a tangent to Lynne’s literary look at women’s roles: women historically have recognized and attended to both the large and small matters of living and place. In every quarter, something large or small needs attention. In my quarter, on an intermontane prairie south of Butte, Montana, I attend a piece of the land surface.

My interest is landscape, which engenders affection for place. Affection engenders caring about what happens here. It recognizes intrinsic value. It acknowledges an original condition, now compromised, and agrees that there is value to its restoration. Not all agree.

What really is the value of “original condition” of a piece of land, especially in light of evolving species, shifting environments, and changing land-use patterns? Who cares if weeds like spotted knapweed (Centaurea bieberstenii) are replacing original grasslands? Or Common toadflax (Butter-and-eggs; Linaria vulgaris)? Or (the wretched) Kochia (Kochia scoparia)? Or Baby’s breath (yes, that one; Gypsophila paniculata)? But it’s not enough to pass off the caring with the question of “who cares” – the important question is “why care?”

Is a weed recognized only in the beholder’s eye? Definitely not. Certainly we all have likes and dislikes among the flowers, grasses, and shrubs on our place, but on that place a “weed” is a known plant – known as an invader, not native to the place. Native vs. non-native status is not a casual assignment. It results from extensive research by field and laboratory botanists ferreting out a plant’s geographic history — when the plant was first recorded in the area and with what plant community it is associated. Generally, invasives have been physically transported — usually inadvertently, in a hay bale or truck tire, but sometimes purposefully — into new spaces where they happen to be able to not just survive but thrive and out-compete the native flora. When invasives are removed, we find that slowly the native flowers and grasses come back, either by advancing from uninfected areas or by seed that has remained in the soil for years. And back come the insects and birds that were part of the original landscape. Sounds prosaic, but it’s true.

Presently, weed control must have an economic value to be considered of any value at all. Ranchers and farmers in the west fight weeds because of the threat to grazing land and crops. Towns and subdivisions, rallying around the concepts of urban blight and property values, sometimes manage to appropriate dollars for weed control, but the efforts are miniscule compared with the problem. And, of course, there is the perennial question of whose problem is it, anyway? Still, there is a growing recognition by municipalities, subdivisions, public land agencies, and individual landholders of the value in controlling invasive plants. Yet we are a long way from weed management for non-economic reasons – simply for the intrinsic value of the land itself.

Do you have observations, opinions, experience with caring for the land?