John Dwyer QC, LLB, MA, Cert. Hort. (Burnley), PhD, turned from practising law to the world of plants and nature. A qualified horticulturist, he has an MA in philosophy, and a PhD on ‘Weeds in Victorian landscapes’ which he is currently revising for presentation as a book. Dr Dwyer writes about weeds and our relationship with nature in gardens and landscapes. For example, he recently presented a paper at Weed Society of Victoria seminar titled, ‘Weed psychology and the War on Weeds’. In this paper Dr Dwyer suggests that weeds are themselves more of a psychological rather than a botanical category, and questions why “fear and loathing” have become widespread in our approach to weeds. One thread of investigation was tracing the heritage of the weed concept to our desire for control and cleanliness, and notions of dirty pollutants in contrast to virtuous crop or native plant cleanliness. He argues that these are deep human concepts that exist in all studied cultures. Dr Dwyer suggests that emotive language reflects and compounds fear and anxiety towards weeds. While he acknowledges many actual cases where this is justified, especially in agriculture, he said the language used makes it difficult to clarify scientific, unbiased views on the ecological roles and impacts of exotic species. Thus, terms like 'noxious', 'feral', 'alien', and 'invader' are examples of emotive language. Dr Dwyer will be presenting a keynote address titled, 'Messages and metaphors: is it time to end the ‘war on weeds’ at the forthcoming 18th Australasian Weeds Conference in Melbourne, 8-11 October, 2012.
