Amid rising temperatures, erratic rainfall patterns, altered land and sea use, invasive alien species are quietly expanding their kingdoms, while humans play catch-up.

In Ethiopia, there are poems about the dangers of the fast-spreading invasive Prosopis juliflora, brought to the country in the 1970s as part of a fodder and anti-land-erosion effort. (Wikimedia)In Ethiopia, there are poems about the dangers of the fast-spreading invasive Prosopis juliflora, brought to the country in the 1970s as part of a fodder and anti-land-erosion effort. (Wikimedia)

Amid it all, a 2024 study by scientists from Austria, Hungary, the US, Australia and Germany found that, on average, natural areas owned by indigenous peoples played host to 30% fewer invasives. (The study was published in the journal Nature Sustainability.)

“While we don’t yet have complete information on why this is so, we do know that there is much to learn from traditional ecological knowledge and that we need to learn from and co-develop knowledge with Indigenous peoples for everyone’s benefit,” Laura Meyerson, professor of invasion science and habitat restoration at University of Rhode Island and lead author of the study, said in a note on the university’s website.

This knowledge is often embedded in the stories, poetry and songs of indigenous people.

Take for instance, a poem from Ethiopia that addresses the adverse impacts of the invasive Prosopis juliflora (called woyane harar) on fodder and cattle.

The shrub is native to parts of Mexico, South America and the Caribbean. It was introduced in the ‘70s and ‘80s, to provide fodder, fuelwood, shade, for dune stabilisation, to help combat desertification, and keep areas green. Its spread has since robbed other native plant species of water, sunlight and nutrients, altering the landscape and thereby impacting native animals and cattle.

Now, people chant…

“Cattle from upland, cattle from lowland

Goats from here, sheep from there

Are you [my camels] ever going to have the trees

That you once had all for yourselves?

In the summer, the floods

In the winter the locusts…

On the lowland the sorghum fields…

The woyane trees

Where should I take you my heart [my she camel]?”

“Our study makes it clear that protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples is also essential for the protection of biodiversity,” says lead author of the study Hanno Seebens, of Justus Liebig University Giessen and the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, Germany.