The environmental weed risk of revegetation and forestry plants

Abstract

Concerns have been raised about the environmental weed risk of non-indigenous plants promoted for broad scale revegetation and farm forestry purposes in South Australia (SA). Environmental weeds are plant species that invade and dominate natural habitats beyond the species' native range. The wide scale planting of species for revegetation, forestry, agriculture and horticulture increases the likelihood that some species will naturalise (i.e., form a self-sustaining population) and invade native vegetation or other landuse systems. However, analyses of past invasions have shown that the majority of plant species introductions will be of negligible weed risk. In 2001 the PIRSA Revegetation Program and the State Revegetation Committee of South Australia commissioned the Animal and Plant Control Commission (APCC) to undertake a weed risk assessment of 20 plant species. Weed risk assessment is the use of standard, technical criteria to determine the relative weed threats posed by plant species ...