Identifying and managing invasive species

When out on a walk in the countryside or along a river course, chances are you have encountered an invasive plant species.

In this talk Green Hive and Karen Muller from the Scottish Invasive Species Initiative (SISI) will explore:

• how to identify invasive plant species in your area
• how to limit the spread of these pesky plants into our local environments
• and of course how we go about safely removing large areas of plants such as giant hogweed, Himalayan balsam and japanese knotweed.

The team at SISI have been working on some really exciting new ways to remove plants like giant hogweed in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way.

Karen Muller is a SISI Project Officer working in Aberdeenshire covering the Deveron, Bogie & Isla catchments, as well as the Rivers Ythan & Ugie.

As part of working to identify and remove invasive species along our rivercourses - Karen was a key part in the successful pilot of a new, environmentally friendly and sustainable solution to giant hogweed removal - sheep!

Karen will take us through how to identify a variety of non-native plant life, and showcase her wooly warriors' work over the last year to eliminate giant hogweed groves in woodland around Macduff.

You can read about the fantastic work Karen does here