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Many weeds are increasing in range and invasiveness.
photo: By Lupin (Own work) (GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)), via Wikimedia Commons
More than 100 new weeds have been added to the Department of Environmental Protection’s list of environmentally threatening weeds.
DoC has listed 112 species in its （https://www.doc.govt.nz/globalassets/documents/science-and-technical/sfc340.pdf New Zealand Environmental Weed List 2024).
The list includes weeds with expanding distribution and increasing invasiveness, such as Chilean myrtle, palm, holly fern, purple wheatgrass and the liana bomaria.
The agency said the species all originated as garden plants.
The new list also includes two seaweeds, wakame and ferns. Wakame is known as the “gorse of the sea”, while caulerpa was first discovered in New Zealand in 2021 And it has the potential to damage marine ecosystems.
“There are 10 times more introduced plant species in New Zealand than there are native plant species,” Dr. Kate McAlpine, a scientific adviser at the New Zealand Department of Conservation, said in a statement.
The new list covers 386 environmental weeds, an 18 percent increase from the 328 weeds on the 2008 list.
Plants are classified as environmental weeds if they grow in the wild and have a significant impact on natural ecosystems.
“Introduced plants are becoming naturalised almost unhindered in New Zealand, with many quickly able to ‘jump over garden fences’ through spread by birds or wind, or even by people dumping garden waste on the edges of local bush reserves,” McAlpine said.
The report also warned of “potential” weeds such as Himalayan wineberry and octopus tree.
“Insidious weeds are not included on the list because they have not become established in the wild, at least not yet. But these weeds are predicted to become fully invasive and have major impacts on our native species and ecosystems.”
McAlpine said climate change will only exacerbate the weed problem.
“As the climate warms, many environmental weeds will be able to survive in previously colder areas of New Zealand. Disturbance caused by extreme weather events can also favour the invasion of environmental weeds.”
The Department of Conservation recommends that people use the nature logging app iNaturalist to post weed observations to help the agency understand the distribution of weeds across the country.
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