To weed or not to weed. That is the question!

YOU MAY not know this, but when not writing plays, Shakespeare himself was a dedicated bush regenerator, and that his most famous phrase was in fact inspired by the title of this article, a statement he was often heard to utter when approaching a new site he was working on, maybe…
Pardon my liberties with the Immortal Bard, but that’s the question I’m putting forward today. Are weeds all bad, all the time, in all situations?
Take for instance the Broad-leaf Privet (Ligustrum lucidum); anecdotally I hear that this tree was introduced to the Blackall Range in the 1950s. They were planted as a windbreak for paddocks. They were tough, fast, provided useful fodder and they also spread! This for me is where it starts to get interesting. They didn’t spread by themselves; they were spread by local native birds that were desperate for a feed.
Broad-leaf Privet in a very short period of time (if the 1950s arrival is correct) has colonised a lot of land that was cleared of it original rainforest, but was marginal for grazing. This spread had been assisted by native birds that have adapted to moving through open country. Our local fauna doesn’t differentiate between native and exotic plants; they are simply keen to fill their bellies (regardless of an Australian made label). They eat the fruit and then politely pass them out, throughout the landscape. The Broad-leaf Privet if conditions are right then grows into a tree. The spread of Broad-leaf Privet along roadsides, creeks, gullies, steep hillsides has also created valuable linkages between our scattered rainforest fragments. The deep shade of the Broadleaf Privet forests creates habitat for shade loving animals that can only inhabit forests. The movement of the shade loving fauna in turn leads to them spreading seed of local rainforest trees by these animals. The seed of rainforest trees in turn grow well under the shade of Broad-leaf Privet… Ok it’s usually about this time in my story when people start throwing things at me, “How can I possibly defend a horrendous environmental weed such as Broad-leaf Privet?” This is by no means a defence, just the observations of two decades of working with weeds and restoring rainforests. Put simply we can often turn Broad-leaf Privet back into rainforest far quicker and more cost effectively than starting a forest from scratch by revegetation. Broad-leaf Privet can be managed to make good rainforest and maintain positive habitat values.