Living with lantana

Lantana camara, the invasive plant species from South America, is now widespread in India. It was brought to India as an ornamental and hedge plant about 2 centuries ago, but quickly escaped from cultivation, spreading across forests, fields, and fallow. It now dominates landscapes across large parts of the country, seemingly at the expense of native plants, wildlife habitat, and the benefits that people derive from forests.

ATREE has recently begun to work with forest-dependent communities to utilize lantana as a way to reduce its net ecological costs—an attempt to make the best of a situation that is potentially irreversible. This work on lantana utilization is a departure from mainstream approaches to control or eradicate invasive species. It is, instead, an exploration of an inclusive approach that compares the costs of purging the ecosystem of an established weed with the benefits of managing or offsetting the cost of invasion by employing the invasive in useful ways.

Other ongoing work on lantana at ATREE includes documenting its density and spread, understanding the ecological underpinnings of its success, studying lantana's impacts on local biodiversity, and the potential drivers of lantana spread, especially the role of fire and historical habitat disturbance. In addition, ATREE works with government agencies on collaborative research related to lantana removal and habitat restoration, as well as to influence policy on monitoring, management, and utilization of invasive species in general.

Stepping back, the questions that arise are related to concurrent problems of global change, biodiversity conservation, governance, and development. What do increased alien species invasions mean for native biodiversity and ecosystem services? Can an invasive’s unbridled abundance be turned to good use for supplementing local livelihoods, especially for communities that are dependent on forest resources? Can existing government programmes be used for invasive species management while concurrently providing employment benefits to local communities? What policies and action will best result in prevention, control, and mitigation of further species invasions?