Since my last post on our Hemlock Hospice installation and exhibition, we had a very successful opening event (October 7) that brought more than 150 people to Harvard Forest, many of who had never been here before; the 18+ outdoor sculptures have successfull weathered torrential rains, howling winds, and the season’s first three snowfalls; and, in the past 6 weeks, over 400 more visitors have signed into the log book, leaving comments there and on ribbons tied to the Exchange Tree.
Lead artist and designer David Buckley Borden and I have given many tours of the exhibition to groups both large and small, and to visiting journalists who have written or are writing pieces about it for a range of audiences. All of these individuals have asked interesting and provocative questions that have spurred us to continue to think ever more deeply about the pieces and their broader meaning and context.
In this essay, I reflect on “invasive species”, how we conceptualize and contextualize them, and how we relate to them. My focus here is on the hemlock woolly adelgid (“HWA”), which is the non-native insect that is killing eastern hemlock throughout the range of this magnificent, late successional tree, but the ideas are, I hope, applicable to other invasive species.
The Unbalanced Ecologist 