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in biology and am familiar with the concept of ecosystems. And as 

 I was driving down the road, there was acre upon acre of melaleuca 

 forests on both sides, and I was not aware of the problem until I 

 went to a symposium in 1988 held by an Exotic Pest Plant Council. 



Now here I am a biologist, and I was not even aware of the prob- 

 lem or could not identify the problem. But once I heard the sci- 

 entists talk about the changes that were occurring in these 

 ecosystems and how diversity just crashed as melaleuca invaded 

 these once highly diverse wetland systems, then a light bulb went 

 on in my mind and went, "Uh-oh, there is something out that we 

 are not dealing with." 



I came back, and I tried to convince my agency that we needed 

 to take a look at this problem a lot more seriously than we had in 

 the past, and basically there was a lot of resistance because they 

 did not really understand it until I brought the scientists up from 

 south Florida and we had a seminar in TallEihassee. 



So I think the problem is a kind of a hard sell, in a way, because 

 if you think about it, environmental issues are divided resdly into 

 two arenas in this country. One, you have the environmental issues 

 that directly affect humankind — clean air, clean water, exposure to 

 hazardous waste, et cetera. But in wildlife areas, people are less fa- 

 miliar with that because to them they perceive that it has abso- 

 lutely no importance or has no direct relevancy to their everyday 

 lives. 



I guess you can divide it up that people vote and wildlife does 

 not vote, and so we have to be their voices, in a way, or be stew- 

 ards of what is in their best interest. And most ecosystems, or what 

 remains of them in this country, are remnants of these once for- 

 merly large contiguous ecosystems that went from coast to coast. 

 Now essentially what we have is island-like habitats surrounded by 

 a sea of agr.culture or urbanization. Like your State of Hawaii, 

 they are showing the same propensity to being invaded by exotics. 

 So Hawaii, even though you are an island State, you are not 

 unique in the sense of what we have left in Florida because we 

 have island-like habitats also. 



Senator Akaka. One possibility is television exposure. People 

 could easily view the program and have a better understanding of 

 the problem. 



Mr. SCHMITZ. I have been successful. We have been on "Good 

 Morning, America" and "ABC Evening News," but I still think the 

 environmental community in this country needs to take a stronger 

 stand with it. I will give you an example. They are spending $400 

 or $500 million to clean up the water coming off agricultural areas 

 south of Lake Okeechobee that is going to flow into the Everglades. 

 If they do not deal with the melaleuca invasion out there, what you 

 are going to end up with is very nice clear water flowing into a 

 melaleuca forest, and not resembling anything like the Everglades. 



Exotics in this country, the invasive ones, they are like environ- 

 mental cancers, and if you do not slow or excise them or manage 

 them, they are eventually going to kill the patient, meaning the 

 ecosystem. 



Senator Akaka. Florida's Exotic Plant Pest Council is developing 

 an extensive prioritized list of harmful alien species. Are there 



