SUMMARY
The goal of this paper is to propose a rational approach to controlling weeds based on ecosystem management. These principles are meant to be applicable to pest management in general, and in this paper, specifically, to that class of pests referred to as weeds, Noxious Weeds, non-indigenous plant species, alien plant taxa, or plant invaders.

Invading species are used here to mean those species which are rapidly increasing in an ecosystem without controls on their growth and spread. Successful management of invading species is dependent on rational approaches and long-term commitment such as that embodied in Integrated Pest Managment (IPM, or specifically for plants, Integrated Weed Management, IWM)-It is a decision-making process which selects, integrates and implements weed control based on predicted ecological, sociological and economic consequences-G. Hoglund, Integrated Weed Management, 1991. The biology of invading species is based on models of the etiology of the spread of infectious disease agents, and from an ecosystem point-of-view, invading species are the equivalent of disease agents (Wooten and Morrison, 1995).

IWM is an implementation of ecosystem management, concerned specifically with invading species, not just legally defined Noxious weeds. The control of invading species requires comprehensive, holistic ecosystem management beyond the reach of mere symptomatic treatments that have characterized previous government weed management projects.

The need for this paper exists because of the recent release of flawed government weed managment proposals, which have met with dismay and protest from the public at large, due primarily to the failure of managers to understand the broader implications of IWM within an ecosystem management framework.

PRINCIPLES
Social and Cultural Objectives

• Education will be an integral part of weed management projects.
• Public involvement will be open and welcome during the planning, preparation, implementation, and if necessary, legal redress, of weed management projects.
• Weed management projects will be designed in the interests of the general public, without favor to special interests or chemical companies.
• Proposed projects will include integration of cultural values with resources.
• Proposed projects involving the use of pesticides or herbicides will include risk analyses for public health and safety, and thresholds for health and safety tolerance will be publicly available. Faulty analyses or risks exceeding thresholds will be cause for rejection of proposals.
• Proposed projects will describe and analyze the economics of manual control methods without bias.
• Proposed projects will describe and analyze costs/benefit ratios. Faulty analyses or net losses will be cause for rejection of proposals.
• Proposed projects will provide clear and concise definitions and terms.
• Goals of proposed projects will be realistic and objectives will be measurable.
• Monitoring will be incorporated in all weed management programs.

• Managers will describe weed control measures within an ecosystem managment framework involving an understanding of the biology, demographics and etiology of weed spread.
• Managers will describe weed control measures within an ecosystem management framework involving an understanding of the differences in ecology between native and introduced species' ecology.
• Damage thresholds will be established for invading species that activate a process of strategic weed management.
• Areas in which eradication of certain species may not be feasible will be identified, and goals will be directed toward control strategies rather than eradication in these areas.
• Areas in which control or containment may not be feasible will be identified, and management will not use funds in these situations until control mechanisms have been established.
• Use of native species for recovery will be encouraged. The use of introduced forage grasses will be discouraged, as many introduced grasses are also ecosystem invaders, and attract livestock into recovery zones.
• Monitoring will be incorporated in all weed management programs.

• Preferred alternatives will have clearly stated goals
• Preferred alternatives will substantially involve the public.
• Preferred alternatives will be long-term solutions.
• Preferred alternatives will be economically cost-effective
• Preferred alternatives will have clearly stated costs.
• Preferred alternatives will be specific about dates and times.
• Preferred alternatives will be site-specific.
• Preferred alternatives will be species-specific, and will use scientific nomenclature for plant names.
• Preferred alternatives will incorporate effectiveness monitoring.

• Decision documents will provide analyses of health and safety risks associated with pesticides, and will do so openly and without bias. Descriptions of potential hazards will be available to the public, and will include discussion and analysis of potential effects on sensitive individuals, children, hazards for which risks such as cancer can never be zero.
• Decision documents will describe the affects of proposed treatments on the environment, and will include discussion and analysis of potential, but unknown effects of herbicides including above- and below-ground transport, breakdown factors, food-web incorporation, nature of targets, synergistic effects, and aquatic effects. If the balance of such effects are completely unknown, herbicide use will be restricted to emergency cases in which eradication is imminently attainable, and for which other documentation has been completed.
• Decision documents will include worst-case scenarios including a discussion of potential effects resulting from chemical spills, herbicide drift, off-target contamination, and accidental over- application.
• Permits for use on public lands will be rejected for chemicals containing so-called "inert ingredients". Manufactured products containing trade secrets for ingredients have no place on public lands.
• All areas treated with herbicides will be posted for the duration of pesticide residuals on the site.
• Cumulative effects will be analyzed including the potential for development of herbicide tolerance, chemical buildup, and selective changes in vegetation structure resulting in loss of resources.
• Only permitted applicators will be allowed to use herbicides.
• The use of herbicides will be a LAST resort.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT
The following definition was taken from the Forest Service's Northwest Forest Plan:

"The goal of Ecosystem Management is to sustain the productivity and integrity of natural ecosystems on public lands."

Ecosystems are collections of all individuals within a defined time and physical space, whose requirements for species viability are met by processes and components provided by the environment.

A program of ecosystem management would consider the process of plant invasion apart from whether a species is indigenous or not, and would manage based on a defined, desired ecosystem integrity. Plants and animals within an ecosystem would be managed as ecosystem components. Processes of an ecosystem would be managed based on the biology and ecology of those components. Land management agencies such as the Forest Service would propose projects for subsets of ecosystems, for example specific areas of or times of projects, or specific plant and animal species or species groups. Under ecosystem management, these categories would be managed within the broader set of associated life processes of their environment. More importantly, management would deal with the causes of problems as ecosystem alterations, such as in the recovery of suppressed stands of conifers, overgrazed meadows, fragmented forests, or disturbed sites that have led to species invasions.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF INTEGRATED WEED MANAGEMENT
The goal of an Integrated Weed Management (IWM) Program is to implement a decision-making process to select, integrate and implement control methods for invading plant species based on predicted ecological, sociological and economic consequences.

Invading species are those species which are rapidly increasing in an ecosystem without controls on their growth and spread. Public agencies need to implement ecosystem management, including Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Integrated Weed Management (IWM), that manages invading plant and animal species as pathogenic processes in unbalanced ecosystems. Solutions to the weed problem involve holistic ecosystem management, not just symptomatic treatment.

While legally defined Noxious Weeds can be specified and prioritized as a target class, they still need to be managed as part of a multi-species ecosystem. Targeted species groups will list the scientific names of all taxa under consideration. Undefined, and value-laden groups of species such as "undesirable species", "poisonous species" and "unwanted vegetation" will not be acceptable as target classes.

For National Forest lands, the goal of an IWM program is bounded by goals for sustainable agriculture and forestry specified in the Federal Land and Policy Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA), the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974, and for protection of biodiversity as mandated in the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), and in the standards and guidelines established in individual Forest Plans. This proposal, however is equally applicable to state lands which must meet goals for long-term sustainability.

ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT PROPOSAL
This section describes suitable objectives for a comprehensive Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program using ecosystem management of invading species, including Noxious Weeds, invasive native plants, and non-indigenous animals such as nutria, cattle and sheep, on public lands.

Objective 1. Education. Weed management projects will include public education about ecosystem and vegetation management involving cooperation between federal, state, county and private entities. Cooperative agreements will be entered into that provide information to interested groups about vegetation management on public lands. Budgets for education about invading species will include time for meetings, training, health and safety concerns, and signing of project areas for management objectives such as control treatments. Workshops will train government personnel on how to recognize Noxious Weeds and other ecosystem invaders.

Objective 2. Social and cultural values. Proposed weed management projects will reflect the social, moral and cultural customs of the local citizenry. Cultural plants and animals will be identified and protected, local customs such as hunting and wild-food gathering will be considered, and demographic characteristics of the affected public will be considered, e.g., logging, orchard- growing, and outfitting and guiding.

The interests of the community and social costs have to be taken into account when making decisions. Directors and managers are accountable to the community for the results of their work and for the way in which such results are achieved. This is particularly true when using chemicals in which hazards and risks cannot be eliminated, only minimized.

Objective 3. Public involvement. Weed management projects will be designed in the interests of the general public, without favor to special interests or chemical companies. Public involvement will be welcomed at all stages of a project, and informed public opinion will be considered in decision- making. Information about environmental effects will be made available to the public before implementation of a project can begin. Biased or misleading decision documents contrived so as to affect the decision outcome will be grounds for rejection of a project. The public will have the right to appeal decisions to a higher authority, and to seek damages arising from the project actions.

Objective 4. Ecosystem Management. IPM will analyze projects in an ecosystem framework, designed to achieve consistency with natural processes. Projects will incorporate consideration for environmental requirements that protect long-term site-productivity, and ecosystem integrity.

Ecosystem management would examine the biology of invading species and their interactions within the affected environment, and then manage infestations, first through preventive measures designed to stop further spread and prioritize controls on small populations of new invaders. For different invading species, different methods would apply, e.g., where the treatments would be more harmful to the ecosystem than the weeds, or where no cost-effective treatments presently exist.

As an example of how ecosystem management could improve the management of public lands, consider how plant invaders become established. Initial introductions often arise through the use of roads and trails in which seeds are brought in on cars, livestock, hiker's boots, contaminated feed, or contaminated seed mixtures. Natural and man-made disturbances adjacent to those introductions then act as sites for further spread.

It is ineffective to treat roads in an area where new road building will subsequently act as a spreading center for reinvasion of the treated species. It is ineffective to herbicide a site where large populations of weeds are adjacent to the site for reinfection. Similarly, it is ineffective to treat overgrazed public lands through herbicide treatments when cattle continue to spread the same weeds back to the site each year.

Treatments need to be consistent with the management objectives for an area. Inappropriate seeding of forage grasses should not be combined with cattle grazing unless pasture creation is specified in the management plan. Such practices may be appropriate for farms with irrigation, yearly plowing and reseeding, but are generally inappropriate on public lands with limited management funds. Pasture grasses such as the wheatgrasses and the bromes have been commonly used in the Pacific Northwest with a number of undesirable ecosystem effects. Their high protein content acts as an attractant to livestock, resulting in increased soil disturbance and weed spread preferentially in recovery zones. Feed store lots are often contaminated with seeds of the very weeds that the grasses are supposed to replace. If successful, introduced perennial grasses often act as ecosystem invaders, spreading without control across the landscape.

The premise of restoration needs to be based on informed judgment and ecosystem management that treats the sources of the problems, which for weeds are primarily grazing, roads, and logging. The literature is replete with examples of how increased government funding without consideration of real ecosystem effects has led to ecological disasters. For instance, millions of acres of the Oregon interior were plowed and converted to crested wheatgrass by well-meaning, but uninformed government programs, before it was discovered that the wheatgrass did not survive, but once plowed, the native plants would not return. These areas are now vast deserts visible from outer space as the failed products of a technology gone awry.

Objective 5. Site- and time-specific analysis. Project funding will be defined for specific areas and times. Projects with large acreages, such as roadside spraying programs, need to emphasize long- term, sustainable management practices designed to sustain ecosystems at a fundable level. Projects may consider the historic range of variability or the desired future condition, but these will be realistic models of the affected ecosystems.

Objective 6. Economic analysis and effectiveness. Costs of projects need to be specified. Vague project descriptions are not a part of IPM. The area, duration, effectiveness, funding mechanisms, direct effects, indirect effects and cumulative effects will be documented in the design of projects which impact the environment. Projects will specify the funding necessary to accomplish the goals of a program, and will allot 5% of the total funds to monitoring. Projects will not proceed until funding for monitoring is secure.

Projects for weed management will not proceed without a budget, timeline, and specific goals and objectives for specific areas. The effectiveness of attempts to control Noxious Weeds depends on limited funding which should be spent on areas of the highest priority, which would be new invaders where the populations are still small and controllable, and where public lands are adjacent to private lands. It is insanity to propose that the government be given funds and the freedom to widely apply questionable practices and industrial chemicals over large acreages of public lands without an analysis of whether the treatments even work, let alone without knowing the effects on non-target species. Most IPM treatments require are a combination of techniques. Unfortunately, none of these come without costs of implementation, follow-up, and in some cases, costly cleanup.

Objective 7. Prevention of undesirable outcomes. In cases where irretrievable and irreversible losses of public resources will occur due to a project, the project will not proceed without near universal public approval. Projects which fail to meet goals will be discontinued.

In the case of invading species, it is insanity to treat the problems of ecosystem alteration due to Noxious Weeds by the widespread and thoughtless application of chemicals in an unsound program which does not treat the causes of the problem: overgrazing, overroading and overharvesting of natural resources. In implementation of projects on public lands, decision documents need to address specific measures of prevention, such as removal of seeds from boots and logging trucks, closing of roads, maintenance of cattle fences, or yearly inspections of firefighting landing pads and camps. Use of pelletized feed in wilderness areas might be useful, if such pellets can be guaranteed free of ecosystem invaders.

Objective 8. Monitoring. Projects will adhere to the goals specified in management plans for an area, and through yearly validation and monitoring of the effects of management actions. In cases where monitoring reports for a project indicate failure to meet goals or objectives, or if reports are incomplete or falsified, projects will be discontinued until the reason for failure is reviewed. If the program is ineffective or cost/benefits are not realized, or environmental effects are considerably greater than described in the decision document, then the projects will be redesigned or discontinued.

Objective 9. Use herbicides as a last resort. Herbicides and pesticides are a tool of last resort. There is no such thing as a completely safe pesticide. Projects which fail to account for public health, public safety, ecosystem integrity, community values, and fish and wildlife viability are a breach of the public trust. This is not to say that herbicides do not belong in any projects, but that such use needs to be designated by informed decision, and implemented by intelligent, qualified personnel.

REFERENCES

Hoglund, Georgia E., J. Stiverson, H. Knorr and J. Stiverson. 1991. Integrated Weed Management, a Guide for Design and Implementation. Volunteer Contract, Okanogan National Forest, Okanogan, WA.

Wooten, George, and Peter Morrison, Biological Invasions of Alien Plants in the Interior Columbia River Basin (Excerpted from Key Elements for Ecological Planning: Management Principles, Recommendations, and Guidelines for Federal Lands East of the Cascade Crest in Oregon and Washington, a Report to the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project, Cara Nelson, ed., Columbia River Bioregion Campaign, Science Working Group, 41 S. Palouse St., Walla Walla, WA 99362, May 19, 1995).

George Wooten, Jr.
23 Aspen Lane
Winthrop, WA 98862
EMAIL COMMENTS TO: George Wooten

I am a professional botanist, biochemist, ecologist and educator, working seasonally on the Okanogan National Forest (ONF), through my work as a field ecologist on the North Cascades Grizzly Bear Ecosystem Habitat Mapping Evaluation, and as a District Botanist working on the Methow District of the ONF. The statements presented here are my opinions, and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, the USDA Forest Service, or my associates in the Washington Native Plant Society.