The Ecology of Invasions: Reflections from a Damaged Planet

To address the present and future ecologies of war, this paper presents the development of ecology as war. The radical reconfiguration of plant and animal communities in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, fuelled by economic globalization, has led to the militarization of ecosystems in biological discourse. Beginning with a re-reading of ecologist Charles S. Elton's groundbreaking study, The Ecology of Invasions in Plants and Animals (1958), this paper considers the implications of the trope of invasion to describe this novel paradigm of ecological movement. By re-tracing the outbreak of both rhetorical and biological invasions, this paper explores the possibility of re-thinking these biogeographic developments outside of a militaristic framework.