An Historical Perspective
Just 15 years after the arrival of the First Fleet, Governor King listed 292 introduced plants already established in the colony and requested that a further 82 be sent from England. Subsequently, Acclimatisation Societies industriously introduced and established more and more exotic plant species, and more recently the nursery industry imported plants without restriction. Over the space of time legislation was put in place to manage the proliferation of weeds, the first in 1851 referring to the, “…great injury and loss (which) have been and are occasioned to the cultivated and waste lands of this province…”.  It was to be some hundred years before Queensland proclaimed a list of weed species, but by then, as still now, the populace at large assume the flora they observe on a daily basis to be truly Australian. As a result, scant regard is given for the impacts these introduced plant species are having on our landscape and unique native species, both flora & fauna. In excess of four billion dollars of taxpayer's money is being expended annually in a less-than-successful attempt to affect some control.  Recently it has been stated that, ‘…with the possible exception of New Zealand, Australia was to suffer more environmental disasters from the unforseen results of acclimatisation than perhaps any other country on earth.’

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