Purple Loosestrife

The following passages concern a plant called purple loosestrife. Passage A is excerpted from a report issued by a prairie research a journal of sociology.

Passage A Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), an aggressive and invasive perennial of Eurasian origin, arrived with settlers in eastern North America in the early 1800s and has spread across the continent’s midlatitude wetlands. The impact of purple loosestrife on native vegetation has been disastrous, with more than 50 percent of the biomass but no measure of the impact of this herbicide on native plant communities has been made.

With the spread of purple loosestrife growing exponentially, some form of integrated control is needed. At present, coping with purple loosestrife hinges on early detection of the weed’s arrival in areas, which allows local minimum damage to the native plant community.

Passage B The war on purple loosestrife is apparently conducted on behalf of nature, an attempt to liberate the biotic community from the tyrannical influence of a life-destroying invasive weed. Indeed, purple loosestrife control is portrayed by its practitioners as an environmental initiative intended to save nature rather than control it. Accordingly, according to the scientific community, and all of nature suffers under its pervasive influence.

Regardless of the perceived and actual ecological effects of the purple invader, it is apparent that popular pollution ideologies have been extended into the wetlands of North America. Consequently, the scientific effort to liberate nature from purple loosestrife has failed to decouple itself from its philosophical origin as an instrument to control hunting, trapping, and recreation revenues due to a decline in the production of the wetland resource.