But not in the way ecologists usually think of plant invasions!
This is not about live plants spreading, but more inert forms of these species that are increasingly being taken into cities — as material, as art, and as a way of telling a larger ecological story.
For close to twenty years now, we have been working on creating value and livelihoods from Lantana. One of the most visible outcomes of this work has been the Lantana elephant sculptures through the high profile exhibitions around the world with www.thegreatelephantmigration.com. Each is based on a real wild elephant from the Nilgiris and carries its story — of how elephants and people coexist in this landscape. Through these stories, they call on audiences everywhere to think about how we live with the natural world around us.
They also generate funds to support human–wildlife coexistence through their sale.
While these elephant exhibitions continue globally, we are now trying to diversify. We are working on more affordable, art-based products made from Lantana and, increasingly, Senna, through a new brand - The Elephant People. This is partly about access, but it is also about awareness.
A major ecological crisis is unfolding quietly across many of our protected areas. These landscapes are often described as “well protected” because people have been kept out. At the same time, they are being steadily taken over by inedible, toxic, invasive plants.
In parts of South India, up to 50% of protected areas are now largely unusable for most large mammals because Lantana and Senna dominate, fundamentally altering habitat structure and food availability.
This is not just an Indian problem.
Lantana is now the most widely distributed invasive plant in the world. Native to Central and South America, it has spread across the tropics and subtropics, limited mainly by frost. Outside of dense rainforests and deserts, it has become a serious ecological problem almost everywhere.
Attempts to remove Lantana have been underway for more than a hundred years, yet the spread continues. The estimated cost of removing it from the forests of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve alone is close to ₹2,500 crores, making large-scale removal through government of philanthropic funding unviable.
Using the plant is therefore the most reasonable way forward. It creates incentives for removal, helps sustain livelihoods, and builds wider awareness around a problem that often remains invisible to urban audiences and policy makers.
There are major policy constraints. Current central laws do not allow the commercial use of material extracted from within protected areas. Some South Indian states are beginning to address this on a case-by-case basis, but this requires a more concerted national push.
There is another important complexity to acknowledge. Furniture- and craft-based uses do not, by themselves, clear vast landscapes of Lantana. Only a small proportion of straight stems are typically usable, while much of the plant remains unutilised.
Taking Lantana and Senna into cities as art and material will not solve the problem on its own. But it may be one of the few ways left to connect urban audiences to this crisis, generate sustained pressure for policy change, fund other processes of large scale removal, and begin responding at the scale the invasion demands.
There are also efforts underway to use the entire plant — pulverising it and converting it into biochar, and leveraging carbon finance to fund removal and restoration. These approaches have the potential to support livelihoods for over a thousand Indigenous forest stewards, benefit many thousands of farmers through improved soil health and agricultural income, and permanently sequester carbon.
Look out for www.WildCarbon.eco and www.theelephantpeople.com!
