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think it is something we will struggle with, with a lot of problems 

 that we face in this Nation today. 



Senator Akaka. Mr. Schmitz? 



Mr. Schmitz. When I was interviewed by the National media, 

 they asked me — after I gave them a tour of the melaleuca-infested 

 landscape and the Everglades, and they asked me, "Why should we 

 care?" And I gave them the standard biologist's answer about the 

 inherent value and beauty of this ecosystem and its complexity, 

 and their eyes kind of glazed over, and they looked at me and said, 

 "Why should we care?" And I thought for a few minutes, and I said, 

 "Well, it is a real estate issue." And they looked at me and said, 

 "Why is it a real estate issue?" I said, "Well, in many cases that 

 we have bought, purchased these environmentally sensitive lands, 

 not for their mountains." In Florida we do not have any mountains. 

 What we bought our lands for to preserve them for future genera- 

 tions was the biological characteristics of the landscape. And the 

 exotics coming in are displacing — I mean, it is ruining what we 

 bought this land for in the first place. And I said it is devaluing 

 the taxpayer's dollar that was paid on these lands. 



So I thought it was kind of a real estate problem, and they liked 

 it. 



Senator Akaka. Dr. Jensen? 



Ms. Jensen. I thank you for that comment. We think it is a real 

 estate problem, too. 



I think one of the challenges for the public to understand it is 

 that there are many problems and they are diverse. It is easier to 

 get the public to understand a single species in their area that is 

 causing a problem. It is harder to get the public to understand the 

 impact of the invasive exotic species on the whole ecosystem. It is 

 hard to teach people about a zebra mussel changing the food web 

 in the lakes. It is hard to teach the public about the changes that 

 the pine may cause by changing the temperature of the sand, or 

 the alteration of the water table that may be caused by introduced 

 Tamarix in desert oases. Those problems are not evident to the eye. 

 They need to be measured. It will take public education to teach 

 people to think about ecosystems and to understand that the way 

 ecosystems function is part of the health of the ecosystems we are 

 trying to protect. 



Senator Akaka. Dr. Campbell? 



Ms. Campbell. In the case of the forest pests, it should be easier. 

 It just has not really been done. There are photographs of what 

 chestnut forests used to look like. It was not so long ago that we 

 had them. There are, for example, other photographs of gypsy moth 

 damage. There are photographs of other kinds of pests or plants 

 such as the dogwood, which everyone loves, and we can have pic- 

 tures of live healthy ones and pictures of dead ones. 



I think that it is, again, a challenge to everybody — my organiza- 

 tion, all environmental organizations. Federal and State agencies 

 that have authority over these issues — to start making the point. 

 None of us has been doing it consistently. It is a relatively new 

 issue. It is getting more media attention. We just have to keep it 

 up and always, every time somebody mentions ecosystem manage- 

 ment, put this in, never leave it out. 



