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Also in this section:
Teaching the kids about what's at stake
Elephant grass, this problematic old Vietnamese import
This issue's orchid

One more legacy of the Vietnam era

photo and text by Eric Jackson

Back in the 1950s when American society was gripped by a smug confidence that it could conquer any adversary --- and nature itself --- and when any doubts expressed about these things could get a person placed on somebody's blacklist of subversives, some gringo working for the old Panama Canal Company got the bright idea that an import from the newly created US ally South Vietnam was the answer to the problem of erosion along the banks of the canal's Culebra Cut. So Vietnamese elephant grass was imported and planted along the cut, and in short order the stuff was spreading virtually unchecked across the Panamanian countryside.

The "paja canalera," as the Panamanians soon came to call it, carried with it profound ecological and economic consequences. Traditionally, the poor could hack out a piece of land from the jungle, raise a few seasons worth of crops until the thin topsoil was no longer fertile, then move on to another plot and let the jungle grow back. Because of a growing population, this slash-and-burn type of agriculture was doomed anyway, but with the arrival of elephant grass the old cycle was instantly broken because instead of the jungle growing back the grass would take over any soil that had been disturbed and then abandoned. Neither people nor cattle can eat this grass, and in dry season it provides perfect fuel for destructive and difficult to control brush fires.

This fast-growing invasive weed is also a pain for many hay fever sufferers, whose sinuses will tell them when these ripening tassels have matured and given off pollen,

Elephant grass is controlled by continuous cutting to keep it from getting tall, flowering or maintaining its root structure, or by casting shadows over it with things like quick-growing teak trees (it doesn't grow in the shade), or by planting crops like guandu whose roots block the growth of the Vietnamese plant's roots.

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