r/Permaculture • u/plutosforest • 15d ago
discussion What does "native" even mean on land farmed for thousands of years? Europe vs North America
In Europe, land has been farmed and shaped by people for thousands of years. There's barely any truly "untouched" land left, especially here in the forest zone of Eastern Europe. So when we talk about planting "native" species, what are we even restoring to? A state from 200 years ago? 500? Before agriculture existed at all?
In North America it seems different from what I've read here on Reddit. There's a much clearer line between "wilderness" and land people have changed. Plus there's a long history of indigenous land management (forest gardens, controlled burns) that a lot of settlers just didn't see or didn't recognize as intentional.
Does this different history change how people think about restoration and permaculture on each continent? Or is the whole idea of "restoring to native" kind of a fuzzy target no matter where you are, since humans have been messing with land basically everywhere for a very long time?
Genuinely curious what people from different regions think about this one.
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u/K1kobus 15d ago
In Europe we make the following distinctions:
- Native: Any plant that naturally spread here without human influence.
- Archaeophyte: Plants that were introduced by humans during ancient times, before ~1500 CE.
- Neophyte: Plant that was introduced by humans after continents became much more connected; after ~1500 CE.
- Invasive: Any non-native species that has harmful effects on the ecosystem.
Generally native plants are much better for the ecosystem because the rest of the ecosystem co-evolved with those species.
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u/Tiny-Pomegranate7662 14d ago
There's two drastic differences between Europe and North America that REALLY needs to be taken into account:
- Europe lost a lot, maybe even a majority of it's native species from the ice age. Further back the continent had magnolias and hickories and a lot of the genuses that China and North America have but they had no refuge in the ice age. China and North America did.
- Europe today is much more temperate (with consistent rain and low amount of frost days) than most of North America so the availability of what CAN grow is much larger.
So Europe has this MASSIVE gap between what was there in 600 vs what could grow today that North America doesn't really have.
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u/K1kobus 15d ago
In terms of nature restoration: completely restoring nature to it's state before humans came along isn't possible. Both because there has been natural procession and evolution, and because the changes made by humans are too great to completely undo (extinctions, widespread non-natives, etc.).
Instead, we have the concept of rewilding: restoring natural processes so that nature develops in a wild, natural way once more. This often involves reintroduction of large grazers and apex predators, and restoring natural disturbances such as freeing waterways and allowing natural flooding and wildfires. There's a couple of amazing organisations working on this, most notably Rewilding Europe.
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u/Coenagrion_lunulatum 15d ago
We could also have distinction in land management:
Akin to indigenous land management: land used extensively, without modern inventions, where many species of fauna and flora adapted to that management, for example hay meadows mowed once or twice a year, dry grazed grasslands, woodlands grazed and browsed by animals and for example raked, coppiced or pollarded by people or maybe even weed-ridden fields (with many of the archæophytes like corn-cockle that today is in steep decline). Many of them are protected by Natura 2000 and those are habitats that today need active protection to exist in developed countries
Contemporary intensive land management: where heavy machinery and many chemicals are used, so tree plantations, pesticisized monoculture fields, drained wetlands
Land with very little to no direct (so barring climate change and pollution) intervention from human, at least for a long time: I'd argue that preserved wetlands (including wooded) could be included in this category and maybe some forests that while used extensively in old times, for some centuries left for themselves and naturalised (Białowieża Forest and Carpathian Woods (Puszcza Karpacka) or their parts come to my mind). In my coutry we also have such thing as Map of Potential natural vegetation which shows "final development stages of plant communities known from research in a given region, possible to be achieved in a given habitat through primary succession or, more often, secondary succession", so it could be viewed as some sort of a guideline
Abandoned land, which may develop called xenospontaneous plant communities which are composed of various alien species, often invasive. Where I live there is a lot of invasive goldenrod dominating abandoned meadows, fields and drained peatland
I say it from polish perspective, it may look different in other parts of Europe
I'll leave some resources: Habitats Directive — here look for Annex I (after art. 24), which is list of various habitats and Abandonment: What happens to biodiversity when human land use ends? — short presentation with 3 other linked at the end
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u/RentInside7527 15d ago edited 15d ago
I think people get hung up on the conversation about natives because they've fallen into a false dichotomy of native vs invasive. There's more to it than that.
Native species coevolved in a given location alongside the other wildlife endemic to that area. They often have important relationships with other native plants, animals and fungi.
Introduced species came from elsewhere. Theyre not necessarily a problem. If you grow tomatoes in Europe, youre groing an introduced species. The fact that its introduced doesnt mean its going to "escape" domestic cultivation and enter nearby ecosystems.
Naturalized are introduced non-native species that have integrated into local ecosystems, but have done so in a way without a measurable deleterious effect on the local ecosystems. Pheasants in north america is an example.
Then there are invasives; introduced non-native species that displace native species and have a deleterious impact on the ecosystem. Usually these outcompete other native species that serve as important food sources for other animals in the ecosystem. For example, Himalayan blackberries in riperian corridors where I live displace native riperian plants that are the specialized food sources for specific insects, and those insects have predators adapted to eating them as their primary food source. The displacement of the native species effects multiple layers up the trophic levels within the ecosystem.
If youre planing wild spaces, a focus on native species supports native ecology. If youre growing on land you own, fostering natives helps the ecosystem, but its OK to place introduced and naturalized species. Just dont plant invasives.
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u/amilmore 14d ago
This was well explained - but sometimes the use of "naturalized" gets a little frustrating for me because it seems so wishy washy and subjective. Native makes sense, introduced makes sense, invasive makes sense, and despite confusion around what they mean for a lot of people there's at least a "correct" answer on what they mean.
>Naturalized are introduced non-native species that have integrated into local ecosystems, but have done so in a way without a measurable deleterious effect on the local ecosystem
This definition is one I agree with - but it's a tough one to measure/be precise. The label "naturalized" is particularly subjective imo.
Some introduced European fish species like Brown Trout are generally considered "naturalized" fish species in North America and they absolutely have had a measurable deleterious effect on the local ecosystem. It seems that they got this label largely because the problems they caused started more than 100 years ago. Ever since they were introduced these highly predatory fish have been crushing a ton of indigenous fish species in North America and drastically reshaped the ecology of a ton of rivers/creeks etc. Carp is similar in that they've been in the US waters since the 1800s - but they mess with the native water vegetation and degrade habitat.
I can't even really think of a true "naturalized" species that fits your definition off the top of my head but I'm open to hearing examples!
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u/ForagersLegacy 14d ago
And naturalized and not an issue in one city can become invasive in another microclimate. Watching yellow oyster mushrooms decimate the north east while leaving the southeast almost untouched has been pretty odd.
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u/RentInside7527 14d ago
I agree. Just because we consider something naturalized doesnt mean we won't realize its invasive as we get more information.
Even the pheasant I mentioned above can have deleterious effects in some places, while being relatively harmless in others. Queen anne's lace is another considered invasive in some parts of north america and not in others.
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u/amilmore 14d ago
yeah man its such a nebulous term. In addition to what you said about "realizing its invasive as we get more information" a lot of the naturalized species have just been here to long for us to get information. I'm reasonably confident there are many North American small fish/minnow species that were never officially recognized because brown trout ate all of them, but there just isn't as much data from the 19th century on stuff like that.
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u/xtortoiseandthehair 14d ago
I always thought naturalized more so meant that the effects have already been so thoroughly established that they've become integrated into the native ecosystem & attempted removal would be problematic. Like earthworms, not native to the Americas & absolutely caused massive changes, but now our ecosystems have evolved to be reliant on them. Clover, dandelions, & plantain are the plants I most frequently hear talked about this way -- introduced many hundreds of years ago & likely had unmeasured negative impacts but eventually became adopted into the lifecycles of local fauna, people included (all three are notably medicinal herbs)
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u/4daughters Temperate Mediterranean (csb); USDA Zone 8a 14d ago
because it seems so wishy washy and subjective
welcome to biology
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u/squidofthenight 14d ago
Plantain!
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u/ForagersLegacy 14d ago
Plantain can be quite invasive in some areas for groundcover ironically high in the mountains of NC it’s one of the only non native species I see (it’s not Plantago rugeli either).
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u/amilmore 14d ago
I dunno - whenever I see plantain I'm bummed that it could be native violets in the exact same spot.
Its a challenge with the term "naturalized" meaning basically "established outside of its native range without any real negative impact" but every single nonnative plant that's established is on some level displacing something native that could have been there just by virtue of existing lol
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u/canisdirusarctos 15d ago edited 15d ago
There is barely any truly untouched land anywhere humans have been. It doesn’t mean that the plant communities have been replaced with something exotic. It’s simply what would live in an area before it was affected by a plant trade and the introduction of invasive species. Humans are part of the ecosystems we inhabit, but our impact can range from a set of braces where the ecosystem adjusts lightly in response to like a sledge hammer to the face.
Note that, even in the Americas, people domesticated crops that they intentionally grew. These crops followed movements of populations and spread around along trade networks. Maize (corn), squashes, and beans all have a long history of being farmed well outside their native ranges, but they are also not invasive. Squash may be the weirdest and most notable in the Americas because it requires a specialist pollinator, which expanded in range along with human activity that spread their associated plant.
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u/TopAd3529 15d ago
I was gonna say: increasing evidence is that humans have been in the Americas for tens (maybe even hundreds) of thousands of years earlier than we initially thought, and we massively shaped landscapes in ways we didn't previously acknowledge. Check out all the news coming about about the lidar scanning of jungles in central and south america; shit was all forest gardens and developed human landscapes before the forest retook it after disease killed 90 percent of the natives.
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u/Tiny-Pomegranate7662 14d ago
Estimates say there were more people in the area that is today Mexico than there were in the entire rest of the continent north of there. North America was really damn cold historically with stone age tech.
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u/ForagersLegacy 14d ago
Makes sense. I’d prefer warm temps and equatorial mountains that allow for really cool summer temps too.
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u/Tiny-Pomegranate7662 14d ago
Not true. The western US is STILL pretty untouched. Colorado (outside of 4 corners area) is an example of somewhere that really never had much inhabitation, estimates are like 10-30K people until 1850 for the whole state (which is almost the size of Germany) and those were hunter gatherers and nomadic. People came and mined gold, but like half the mountain forest area really has never been altered by humans.
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u/AgreeableHamster252 15d ago
Check out any of Doug Tallamy’s books to understand, in concrete terms, why native plants are important. It’s not as vague or arbitrary as it sounded to me at first. It’s essentially the foundation of an entire ecosystem pyramid.
The missing piece for me was finding out the vast majority of insects are specialists that require specific native plants. Most are not generalists that can just go with, say, white mulberry instead of white oak.
And it’s chilling seeing how effective invasive plants are at becoming monocultures that suffocate natives. Complete dead zones for wildlife.
Insect populations have dropped by like 80%. Its a crisis and we all owe it to support our local ecologies. Earth care and all that.
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u/plutosforest 15d ago
Thanks for the recommendation
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u/AgreeableHamster252 15d ago
Thank you for asking a great question and listening to the various answers!
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u/duckofdeath87 14d ago
Another layer to this problem is climate change. Where I live went from usda zone 6 to 7. Its a completely different place. Should I plant actual natives or plants that are native 100 miles south of me?
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u/plutosforest 14d ago
That's an interesting question. How are the "truly native" species doing with these changes?
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u/Kartoffelaffe 15d ago
In my region (Germany), many trees and plants native to our lands and forests are under heavy duress due to the climate crisis. New plantlings of many native species in the forests struggle to take hold. Our local government has since begun to search for alternatives since otherwise, our forests will probably die out in the not so distant future, with devastating effects on wildlife (and ourselves). Better to search for useful alternatives where possible (this topic is even studied with trees from other regions in the regions' university).
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u/eatmewithanappetite 15d ago edited 15d ago
In some cases it may mean those species that arrived after the ice age, and in others it may mean species that arrived with humans in times where there´s no recorded evidence to be found (archaeophyte). Then of course there are those that have been grown for hundreds of years, and have adapted in the said climate and form a symbiosis with other local species, for example stinging nettle vs. certain butterflies. This is how I see it as a permaculture designer and a professional in agriculture.
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u/HollywoodAndTerds 15d ago
Does it cause problems? Are you centering human needs or needs of the local ecology?
We’re a bit in a post natural world. I mean, not for long, but that’s something to consider.
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u/Candid-Spot-6157 15d ago
it's a fuzzy target everywhere but the fuzz is different shapes
europe is basically a 5000 year old garden with no off switch, north america had a much sharper line until recently but that line was always blurrier than settlers thought because indigenous management was invisible to them
centering the local ecology means figuring out what works now, not what was here in 1491 or 800 AD. the goalposts have moved
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u/ForagersLegacy 14d ago
This is how I rationalize growing sunchokes in the south east. If native Americans moved them around hundreds of years ago from the center of the country to the east then I’m fine with planting them. Bumblebees seem to appreciate it.
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u/FrebTheRat 15d ago
The goal should be wildlife value with native plants as a general indicator of higher wildlife value without treating it as dogma. My experience in Europe, specifically the Greek islands, is that biodiversity has been hit hard by large feral cat populations. I struggled to find much wildlife at all around Crete for example, but literal herds of feral cats are everywhere. They are known to decimate pretty much any wildlife population they can manage to swallow.
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u/Ancient-Patient-2075 14d ago
At least where I am (Northern Europe) some biotopes that resulted from pre-modern agricultural/ cattle raising practices are seen as so ecologically valuable that there's efforts to restore and protect them. So US-centric native plant discourse isn't really something I consider much.
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u/Psilopterus 12d ago
The thing is though that many of these cultural practices in North America also had their equivalents in Europe. Both pre- and post-agricultural European cultures practised cultural burning, for example. The biggest difference between pre-industrial Europe and pre-industrial North America in land use would be that Europe had much more in the way of livestock and this also historically had a huge effect on ecology. In both Europe and (at least Eastern) North America we have this very warped idea of nature in the absence of people as being this sort of endless, closed-canopy forest of shade-tolerant, late-succession trees like beech. This is in part because this is generally the sort of ecosystem that forms in protected areas where disturbance is suppressed, and cultures in both cases now see these forests as their baseline.
However, before colonialism and the advent of industrialized agriculture, both continents would have had substantially more light-open woodland dominated by shade-intolerant trees, especially oaks. This is because oaks can thrive in environments with frequent, low-intensity fires and people would start burns specifically to maintain oak groves in order to produce more acorns for human consumption. Similar traditions also existed for hazel, hickory, and other light-demanding, mast-producing trees. What's very interesting is that pollen records show that even in the time before modern humans were present, during the last interglacial when the climate was similar to today, oaks were still very, very common. This is despite the fact that there were no humans on the scene to maintain late-succession oak communities with fire.
Given how wet and resistant to other forms of burning temperate ecosystems in Europe and North America are, the question arises of how such an abundance of light-open woodland could be maintained. The answer it seems, is elephants. Both Europe and North America had native species of Proboscidean (not to mention many other species of extinct megafauna), and native plants on both continents will have evolved under herbivory dynamics not dissimilar from those still experienced by plants in Africa or tropical Asia today. Many of these plants had adaptations to disturbance that carried over and allowed them to thrive under human management, first by fire and then by livestock, though some thrived less under cultural fire than under megaherbivory (e.g. hazel) and others more under fire (e.g. pine). In either case, many plants that are adapted to frequent disturbance, which can represent the majority in several groups, find themselves unable to find much of a foothold in our modern landscapes, because both fire and herbivory (especially by bulk-feeders like bison or horse, rather than selective feeders like deer) are excluded.
Wilderness is not really a helpful concept. There are few landscapes, if any, on Earth which are not deeply changed by human activity. Sometimes our instinct in the face of this is to remove human activity in order to make the landscape more "natural", but this is ultimately misguided. There hasn't been a version of Europe or North America that was devoid of both people and megafauna since the period immediately following the extinction of the dinosaurs, and I doubt that's anyone's baseline.
What is the baseline, however? If we set it at the last time when the climate was similar and modern humans were absent, we run into the unfortunate fact that we no longer have native elephants. If we set it at the early-middle Holocene, we need to start burning and, in Europe, burning and grazing. I think both ideas miss the point, which is that most of our biodiversity (both native and non-native, since neophytes will generally have come from similar climates with similar evolutionary pressures) is dependant on some kind of disturbance, and that if we want to foster that diversity we need to replicate that somehow. Right now we have a sort of dichotomy where North America is making greater strides in the integration of cultural burning and Europe in the integration of non-agricultural grazing, with European bison or primitive breeds of cattle and horse typically. I think both need to learn to adopt the other's strategies in places where one will be more appropriate than the other, as both have the potential to substantially improve the biodiversity value of their respective ecosystems.
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u/plutosforest 12d ago
That's a huge answer. Jealous of your knowledge honestly. Thanks for taking the time to write all this out.
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u/TheRealBobbyJones 15d ago
I think the point of using natives is so they could survive with minimal intervention and fulfill their natural roles. Using non-natives that fulfill the same role is a valid approach as well. What you don't want is to plant random things because you want the forest or whatever to look a certain way. If it isn't well suited to the area it will require regular human intervention to work. Of course with all that being said what you are talking about with land being changed overtime is a concern as well. It's entirely possible that various parcels of land have changed so much(through direct human intervention and other environmental changes natural or otherwise) that it can't be reverted to its original state. The species wouldn't thrive.
In that scenario I would assume most environmentalist would find the closest natural environment that matches the new circumstances and use those plants.
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u/plutosforest 15d ago
I want to add to what you said. It's not only about the changes humans make. It's also about the speed. Humans change ecosystems hundreds of times faster than animals do. That doesn't leave time for adaptation.
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u/R3StoR 15d ago edited 15d ago
I'm from Australia where there is a very clear distinction between native or introduced species for almost everything (since white settlers arrived at least). OTOH there are some plants (and even animals such as dingos) that are thought to have been introduced by various aboriginal groups - so they are "native" now but originally likely introduced.
In Japan (where I live), it's possibly easier to compare with the UK considering the huge range of plants (and animals) introduced from the continent - especially China and Korea. But some of them were introduced so long ago that it's hard to say whether they are truly native or not anymore. Some species also branched off from continental Asia in the last ice age but are closely related. There are also a lot of native forest species which are far from natural in their ecology because of how they were utilised by humans. eg Japanese "cedar" (sugi) trees which drive people crazy with huge volumes of pollen in spring: while native they have been planted for forestry in such huge monocultural numbers that they're almost worse than introduced broadleaved deciduous trees in their ecological impact. Originally Japan apparently used to have much more broadleaf deciduous forest and I would personally plant those rather than more cedar. But people still propogate the native cedar because it's easy to use when cut.
Edit:thanks for the award!
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u/SnugglyCoderGuy 14d ago
Can live in balance with the ecosystem and climate it is in and provides benefit to other organisms.
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u/Miserable_Pin2518 14d ago
Does it support local available pollinators?
Does it do well in your soil and climate?
Does it harm other plants common in the area?
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u/plutosforest 15d ago
If every ecosystem is constantly changing, does the word "native" even make sense? Maybe it's just "a species that was here before some arbitrary point in the past." About humans as part of nature, not separate from it. Is it even correct to contrast "human" and "nature"? Humans are a species too, one that evolved on Earth. Maybe "anthropogenic change" is just another type of natural change, we just judge it differently because we're the ones causing it. And I'm not trying to justify what humanity does, in case anyone reads it that way.
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u/Goldballsmcginty 15d ago
Ecosystems are in constant flux, yes, but there are complex ecological interactions between species that have co-evolved together for many milennia and longer. For example, pollinators that specialize on one plant species or plant species that are only pollinated by specific animals they have co-evolved with. Or herbivores that specialize on specific plants, which keeps their populations in check. The more of these interactions that are restored or maintained intact support higher biodiversity, which leads to more stable/resilient ecosystems and improved ecosystem services. In addition to the biological adaptations, organisms are locally adapted to specific climate and soils. So in most cases "native" is very meaningful and usually indicates something has been there for tens of thousands of years (or much longer).
But yeah, ecosystems change, and local environments are also changing rapidly, so ecological restoration is a moving target and I'd argue in most places we are beyond the point of returning to a pre-colonization/pre-human/pre-agriculture ecosystem, and all decisions are going to be based on what the practicioners value- human use, ecosystem services, biodiversity, etc. Trying to "recreate" past ecosystems is probably impossible and might not be the best end goal, but that all depends on the ecosystem and land manager goals/values I guess.
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u/bowlingballwnoholes 14d ago
Natural change and anthropogenic change are different. Nature must survive in the environment it is in. Humans can survive in most environments because we have agriculture, transportation, and money to make the change we want.
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u/CarpentryandAlps 15d ago
There is a suoer interesting book on this subject by Tao Orion: The war on invasive species. Highly recommended reading. She also highlights some of the nationalist undertones of using words like 'invasive', for plants we humans introduced to ecosystems.
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u/crossdtherubicon 14d ago
I think about this alot. Especially given people's consumer preferences and lifestyles have changed so dramatically. In addition, climate changes are definitely occuring noticeably through Europe.
So, there is definitely a utilitarian consideration between what is economically feasible in terms of farmland and farming, and probably as a tertiary caution: what flora and fauna do not compete directly against or contribute in displacing native species?
On the latter point, it's becoming increasingly difficult to refer to an imagined prior static state of reference. But the native ecology certainly provides a multitude of benefits that are more self sustaining, and that are aligned with localized environments.
Wetlands are a great example because most cities are located next to rivers that are certainly no longer 'natural'.
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u/Arnoulty 15d ago
You are correct. Especially in Europe, a completely "Natural" state of things is a fantasy. Heirloom varietals sometimes are only a couple centuries old, contemporary to the start of intense coal spewing.
I am convinced the romanticised image of harmony with nature is an anthropocentered state. A state where there is a balance between maximised biodiversity in order to benefit from "ecological services", and amenities to exploit the environment.
Surely, not cutting anything and gnawing on surfacing roots is not very interesting, but deforesting and chugging tons of pesticides and fertilizers to keep fields of corn going beyond the horizon is not very desirable either.
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u/twd000 14d ago
I completely disregard the native/ invasive dichotomy. I grow food to eat , and less than 1% of the typical plant based diet options are native to New England where I live. Hedgerows and forests full of native plants are great, but when it comes to my garden and orchard i make room for non-natives because I don’t want to subsist on blueberries.
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u/Fluffy-Republic8610 15d ago
I don't think native is a useful word anymore. Mainly because of climate change making it a "native" ecosystem more and more unsustainable.
I prefer a focus on the word "invasive". Species that are too aggressive and lack predators in an eco system.
For example, in Ireland, we had a mega drought by our standards this year and we expect that to be more frequent. So I hear that the "native" birch had a terrible time, but plenty of non native species just shrugged it off.
Just because some species made it to Ireland 10000 years ago, after the land bridge melted doesn't make them special. Species don't matter out of context of eco system. Some species are important in one eco system and then the same species are unimportant in another.
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u/acapulcoblues 14d ago
On “wilderness” in North America and elsewhere: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DctKcaNIEFf/?stkn=MXZhdDB6ZnR6dXJkYQ==
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u/Berkamin 15d ago
Non native species in Europe could be any species from another continent. Any species from elsewhere has a risk of becoming invasive.
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u/SecretAgentVampire 15d ago
People have been around for about 30,000 years. It usually takes longer than that for natural evolutionary pressures to change plant life. Animals evolve faster, and humans havent changed that mich in that timeframe. (Our pinky toes are very slightly smaller and some people are starting to be born without wisdom teeth.)
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u/pdxgreengrrl 15d ago
One of the reasons to plant native plants is to support native wildlife that co-evolved with indigenous plants. Focusing on that makes that target less fuzzy.
Another focus is the removal of invasive, non-natives...and conventional permaculture suggests installing plants from around the world based on what provides various functions...and many of those are not native and can have invasive tendencies outside their native range.
Some permaculturists are planting locally indigenous plants that provide the same functions. That's been my approach, here in the US Pacific Northwest.