Desperate plea over invasive plant threatening 'beauty' of Australia
There are calls for stricter regulations as many Aussies are able to buy and plant it without knowing the implications.
An invasive plant once introduced to Australia to decorate backyards now poses significant risk to the "beauty" of many national parks, with authorities dedicating time every month to rooting out the "fast spreading" weeds by hand. However, nurseries and garden centres across the country still sell the plant to Aussies and authorities are desperately pleading for stricter regulations.
The most recent preservation work happened in Cattai National Park this week in NSW, with authorities and volunteers from Friends of Mitchell Park getting on their hands and knees to remove lantana — a plant that "completely outcompetes" native plants and has a knock-on effect on wildlife.
"The team 'cut and paint'... they often crawl in under the bushes, cutting them at the base to ground level, then apply herbicide to the stump-top so it doesn't grow back," a spokesperson from NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) told Yahoo News.
The team at Mitchell Park dedicate 10 hours every month to this process and "while we are winning the war against lantana", the threat of extensive spread is ever imminent and is further exacerbated by nurseries who still sell the plant to unaware Aussies.
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Garden escapees could overrun beauty of Australian landscape
The weed thrives in warm and wet landscapes, meaning the biodiversity in several Australian World Heritage-listed areas are at risk such as the Blue Mountains in NSW as well as the Wet Tropics of northern Queensland and the island K'gari.
"Invasive weeds like lantana can just completely overtake our natural environment... it grows really fast and completely shades out native species," Kathleen Herbert from the Invasive Species Council told Yahoo News.
Lantana has now invaded more than five million hectares of eastern Australia and is widely distributed throughout coastal areas. It's so well established "it's too late to eradicate" it.
If it wasn't managed, it could completely alter the way Australian landscape looks and it is listed as a weed of national significance.
"Aussies love going to our national parks because they're proud of our unique landscape and they want to see our native plants and wildlife. They don't want to see an area that's completely overtaken by one species of one weed... it visually takes away the beauty," Herbert said.
Call for stricter regulations as weed still available at nurseries
Lantana flowers in a range of colours, from pale cream to yellow, white, pink, orange and red and they are still available in nurseries, meaning Aussies are unknowingly buying, planting and exacerbating the issue in their own backyards.
"Aussies might just be planting a beautiful plant, how are they supposed to know it's a weed? It's not their fault, they have no idea they're doing it" Herbert said. It follows a similar sentiment by CEO Jack Gough who told Yahoo News Australia that everyday Aussies require either a "botany degree" or to search obscure websites in order to find out what they should and shouldn't be planting in their gardens.
"It means that so many of Australia's backyards are actually ticking time bombs for our environment," he said.
The Invasive Species Council are campaigning to have stricter regulations on the nursery industry to stop the selling and spreading of weeds and a petition was created to rally support.
While lantana spread can only be managed now, authorities are eager to prevent another invasive species or "the next lantana", as Herbert calls it, from breaking out.
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