Let’s Ditch the Dirty Dozen!
It’s time to ban another 12 highly invasive plants in Indiana! We’ve succeeded in banning 44 highly invasive plants from the nursery trade. Let’s get ready to go after the rest.
For more than 20 years, a working group of the Indiana Invasive Species Council (IISC) has conducted scientific assessments ranking invasive plant species in Indiana. The result is an educational Indiana Invasive Plant Species list, first published in 2012.
The IISC shared those species ranked as “highly invasive” with the state regulatory authority for invasive plants—DNR, Division of Entomology and Plant Pathology (DEPP)—with a request to consider banning the sale of these species. This resulted in the first Terrestrial Plant Rule (TPR) in 2020, which banned 44 highly invasive species including Tatarian honeysuckle, purple wintercreeper, and Japanese barberry.
But we’re not done yet! After further review and more assessments, the ISSC working group updated the list in 2018 with 12 new highly invasive species, and the following year DEPP drafted an amendment that would add those species to the TPR. That was in 2019, and we’ve been waiting ever since for this rule amendment to move forward to the next steps of administrative review.
Let’s make 2024 the year it happens – stay tuned for how you can help!
