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stop the sale of weeds in Australia

Escaped garden weeds like lantana and blackberries are choking our streams and bushland and costing Australia billions. Sold to unsuspecting shoppers at nurseries or online, weed plants like English ivy, Amazon frogbit or pretty gazanias can quickly spread and devastate our environment. The last time a plan was proposed to stop the sale of weeds in nurseries, the garden industry killed it. We can’t let that happen again.

Escaped garden weeds like lantana and blackberries are choking our streams and bushland and costing Australia billions. Sold to unsuspecting shoppers at nurseries or online, weed plants like English ivy, Amazon frogbit or pretty gazanias can quickly spread and devastate our environment. The last time a plan was proposed to stop the sale of weeds in nurseries, the garden industry killed it. We can’t let that happen again.

How To Help  |  Take Action

Australians know that weeds like lantana or blackberries are choking our streams and bushland. But what many people don’t realise is that their own garden or fish pond could be a ticking time bomb.

Plants like English ivy, Amazon frogbit or pretty gazanias that they’ve bought legally at a local nursery or online could get into the local environment and take over.

An astounding three-quarters of all listed weeds in Australia are escaped garden plants, sold legally to unsuspecting shoppers in nurseries or online. These weedy plants have already contributed to at least four extinctions.

The current system of self-regulation expects passionate home gardeners to have a botany degree or pay close attention to warnings in fine print to stop their garden plants from spreading into the surrounding landscape.

Recently, Federal Minister for the Environment Tanya Plibersek, and all state and territory governments, committed to develop a plan to protect our bush and streams from invasive weeds.

The last time a plan to stop the sale of weedy plants was proposed, the nursery and garden industry killed it.

In this day and age, it shouldn’t be possible to go to your local Bunnings or nursery and pick up a weed that could choke and degrade the bush. Clear rules to stop the sale of weedy plants are essential to protect our unique biodiversity.

Together, we can show the government that Australians overwhelmingly want to protect our bushland and streams from the impact of weedy plants. 

Send an email to the Federal Minister for the Environment and make it clear that you support a strong plan to stop the sale of destructive weeds in Australian nurseries and online, as well as adequate funding to support it.

Together, we can show the government that Australians overwhelmingly want to protect our bushland and streams from the impact of weedy plants. 

Send an email to the Federal Minister for the Environment and make it clear that you support a strong plan to stop the sale of destructive weeds in Australian nurseries and online, as well as the funding to support it. 

Share this petition:

Send an email to the Federal Minister for the Environment and make it clear that you support a strong plan to stop the sale of destructive weeds in Australian nurseries and online, as well as adequate funding to support it.

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Hear from us when it matters

Your support to protect critically endangered and vulnerable species from extinction is vital. Together, we can ensure governments prioritise action on invasive species and protect our wildlife and iconic places.

The Invasive Species Council was formed in 2002 to seek stronger laws, policies and programs to protect nature from harmful pests, weeds and diseases.

The Invasive Species Council acknowledges the Traditional Custodians throughout Australia and their connections to land and sea. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

Our Work

About Us

Your gift is a lifeline for nature.

Our protected areas are being trashed, trampled, choked and polluted by an onslaught of invaders. Invasive species are already the overwhelming driver of our animal extinction rate, and are expected to cause 75 of the next 100 extinctions.

But you can help to turn this around and create a wildlife revival in Australia. 

From numbats to night parrots, a tax-deductible donation today can help defend our wildlife against the threat of invasive weeds, predators, and diseases.

As the only national advocacy environment group dedicated to stopping this mega threat, your gift will make a big difference.

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Accordion Content

A silent crisis is unfolding across Australia. Every year, billions of native animals are hunted and killed by cats and foxes. Fire ants continue to spread and threaten human health. And the deadly strain of bird flu looms on the horizon. Your donation today will be used to put the invasive species threat in the media, make invasive species a government priority, ensure governments take rapid action to protect nature and our remarkable native wildlife from invasives-led extinction, death and destruction.

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    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]


    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]