Society for Range Management
POSITION STATEMENT:

Noxious and Invasive Weeds

The Society for Range Management recognizes that native or exotic noxious and invasive plants have a major debilitating effect on rangelands and other grazed ecosystems worldwide. Noxious and invasive plants threaten biological diversity, and the structure, function, and sustainability of ecosystems. They diminish the multiple uses and values these ecosystems are intrinsically capable of providing.

The Society promotes:

  1. educational programs for landowners, resource managers, and the general public on the causes of invasion and increasing abundance of noxious and invasive plants, their impacts on natural resource and society, and proven management technologies;
  2. research to improve technologies to manage noxious and invasive plants;
  3. laws, regulations, and cooperation among land management agencies, private landowners, governmental entities, and other interested groups to minimize the dispersal of noxious and invasive plants and to maximize efforts to contain or reduce  existing infestations.

The Society believes it is ecologically and economically sound to prevent the arrival of noxious and invasive plants into new areas, and that the next best solution is to detect new outbreaks before seed production occurs and to initiate aggressive eradication efforts. Established infestations of noxious and invasive plants should be contained and controlled with integrated management systems that utilize mechanical, chemical, biological, or cultural control technologies. Neither single-treatment approaches nor short-term efforts will result in satisfactory long-term solutions to noxious and invasive plant problems. The affected ecosystems and their native or desired species should be restored and protected after noxious and invasive plants have been controlled.

Society for Range Management
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