©Peter Chadwick/DK Images

We’ve written about the invasive species water hyacinth on these pages before, discussing its environmental impact as well as its material value for eco-development projects. But we haven’t seen stories such as this one from Conservation Magazine where there’s a positive side to what many people call the “weed from hell.”

The scene at Florida’s Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge in Kings Bay last October would have been familiar to anyone who has ever engaged in the battle to control the spread of invasive plants. Eager volunteers scurried about the shoreline of this manatee wintering ground, carting large plastic bins stuffed with water hyacinth, a notorious aquatic weed that’s caused headaches on five continents. Closer inspection, however, would have revealed the activity to be anything but business as usual: instead of hauling water hyacinth out of the bay, the conservationists were putting it back in—almost 4,300 gallons’ worth by day’s end.

Those volunteers were taking part in a bold pilot project that is the latest chapter in a half-century-long ecological story that reads like a fable. It starts with a well-intentioned campaign to rid Kings Bay of the water hyacinth, an aggressive nonnative species. Next come decades of additional control measures and a tragic downward spiral that transformed these crystal-clear waters into an unpleasant soup of slimy green algae. Then the story takes an unexpected turn, back to its original antagonist. Only this time, Bob Knight, the wetlands restoration ecologist leading this pioneering project, has recast water hyacinth as the unlikely hero. He believes this South American native, if controlled, could help solve the algae problem and return the bay’s ecosystem to a more desirable state. The irony in this approach is not lost on anyone involved. Continue reading →