Matthew Miller, The Nature Conservancy writer/editor, has written a beautiful article about coming to grips with beautiful yet non-native landscapes.
In my opinion, there are too many conservationists lost in a dream of pure "native" nature, unable to see the flawed-but-still-beautiful world around them. I empathize with his struggle to learn to love degraded places, even the hard-to-love places that are infested with cheatgrass.
Trying to widen our circle of appreciation to include even nasty invasives helps us appreciate the natural in the unnatural: the native pollinators that use invasive wildflowers, the native birds that nest in invasive trees.
To quote Princess Mononoke, our task now is "to see with eyes unclouded by hate."
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