By THERESA HOGUE
Gazette-Times reporter | Posted: Thursday, June 7, 2007 12:00 am
When a non-native plant took over China's coastal areas, OSU wanted to help
Professor Samuel Chan was 3 when his parents relocated from Hong Kong to the United States. In the 40-some years since that time, he had never returned to his native country until this May, when he got the chance to view China with adult eyes.
Chan is an assistant professor with the Sea Grant Program at Oregon State University. He's interested in building cross-cultural, cross-educational relationships with faculty and students in China, and enhancing the already-established ties between Oregon and Fujian Province, on the Chinese coast.
Ironically, the new relationships he is forging are based on an exchange between the two countries in the 1970s that didn't go quite so well.
Three decades ago, as China and the United States began re-establishing diplomatic relations, the U.S. government recommended that the Chinese use a type of Eastern sea grass called Spartina to help control erosion along their estuaries. What started as a good-will gesture ended up causing a lot of environmental damage in China, as the non-native invasive species took over the estuaries and the surrounding forest land.
"This is a grass that had really important benefits in its native habitat, but out of its native habitat it actually created many problems," Chan said.
Spartina is a beneficial plant along the eastern beaches of North America, but the plant is having a not-so-positive effect in both the Pacific Northwest and now in China, where it is choking out the rich coastal woodlands which once dominated Fujian Province. Near the city of Quanzhou, for instance, more than 8,000 hectares of estuary are now covered in the grass, turning forests into fields.
"It invaded most of the major estuaries in this province," he said. "We have the same problem here in Oregon. Fortunately we don't have major populations of it, we've been able to keep an eye and control it."
Fujian Academy of Forestry invited Chan and his team to visit the province and study the problem of Spartina grass. They spent 12 days in China talking to researchers and people living alongside the affected areas.
Spartina has a number of negative consequences on the province's coastal estuaries, Chan said. Many people living along the shore depend on these estuaries for their livelihood, as they gather the aquatic creatures living there for food and income. The forests that are slowly disappearing were an important barrier against tsunami waves, breaking up the waves with their bulk in ways a field of sea grass can't. And estuaries are critical filters for pollution, a common problem in China. Trees soak up and disperse nutrients and filter pollution in a more effective way than the non-native grasses.
However, the opportunity to study the effects of the Spartina invasion in China provided a number of benefits, including forging stronger international relationships, helping out fellow researchers and gaining information that could change the way Americans respond to Spartina.
"One of the main reasons we went there was the Spartina situation in the United States is a very high priority because we don't want it to spread," he said. "When we learned about the China situation it quickly created that global connection that we weren't alone."
A crew from Oregon Public Broadcasting accompanied the team to document the project. Oregon State University, the Oregon Invasive Species Council and SOLV, an nonprofit organization that advocates for Oregon's beaches, are starting a major campaign to educate the public about non-native invasive species, and the work OPB is doing will be a part of their public outreach.
Now that the team has returned, Chan wants to keep the momentum going, and begin exchanges between the two countries that include experiments in Spartina management. He hopes the work between OSU and the Fujian Academy of Forestry will not only help quell the Spartina invasion, but will lead to ways to deal with other invasive species, such as water hyacinth and Chinese mitten crabs.
"It's the best way for us to connect," he said.