Kim Eierman's excellent EcoBeneficial! enterprise prompts gardeners to think about new ways of looking at the relationships between what they plant, how they plant and how they treat their land to wider environment issues. She kindly asked me to do an interview for her very lively blog, after my presentation on invasive alien plants at New York Botanical Garden in November (see below). The interview covers a range of conservation issues -- ecological restoration, the challenge of climate change, my critique of the very problematic  'novel' ecosystems approach. Kim liked it enough -- or perhaps I was just so garrulous! -- that she split it into two parts. Here is the first part, and the other will come in the next few days...  
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I gave the keynote address on alien invasive plant management at the very well attended Lower Hudson PRISM Summit on 3 November. You can see a video of the presentation, and the whole summit, here.
​In summary, I argued that the poorly conceived 'novel ecosystem' theory has led to the popular notion  that 'invasive plants will save nature' (Fred Pearce). This is scientifically false and undermines sound conservation policy; but I also argued that  'removal alone is not enough' , that ecological restoration is the best way to cope with the challenge, and that the new International Standards published by SER provide the best restoration guidance currently available.