* Animal activists fail to significantly disrupt fish farms because of new policing powers and tougher legislation to deter such activities. Probable.
* Despite lack of successful militant action, continued number of escapees from fish farms blamed for denuding wild-salmon numbers. Population falls to ‘critical’ levels within ten years. Strong possibility.
Likelihood of wild Atlantic salmon being extinct by 2015: 61%
The root of all problems
AGENDA
* Savage gardens
* Put down monstrous roots
* Rupture the infrastructure
The aliens landed some time ago. For a while they kept themselves to themselves and even seemed relatively well behaved. But, in truth, they were biding their time, waiting for the moment when world domination could begin. Naturally, being aliens, they would first have to morph into something terrible. And so they became a Triffid-type monstrosity, a rapacious superweed replete with superpowers. They became indestructible.
Knotted up
The Japanese knotweed, brought back to Victorian Britain from the Orient as an ornamental delight, is probably your favourite plant. A splendid-looking piéce de résistance with the armoury, faculties and, most of all, ambition to subvert Europe’s existing ecosystems. Knotweed is unstoppable. Labelled ‘unbelievably strong’ by the government’s admiring Environment Agency, it can burst through concrete pavements and tarmac and topple brick walls. Floorboards have been ruptured. Roads have been split. And now, the knotweed has set its sights on the rape of Europa. More dangerous, according to Britain’s leading scientists, than anything they have created with genetically modified organisms, knotweed is the second gravest threat to Europe’s plants (beaten only, and marginally, by reinforced concrete). She – the invaders hail from a single female ancestor – is a fabulous, wily specimen, capable of reproducing effortlessly on her own. And she is in a hurry, with each clone capable of growing a metre a week. Horticulturists, almost hysterical with shock, claim to have actually seen her grow.
Out in the wild, knotweed has no natural enemies. Only man stands in her way and, quite frankly, he just doesn’t cut it. Despite desperate and repeated efforts, nothing has been found to tame the knotweed. Trips to Japan to find a solution have yielded little. Hopes that voracious aphids and fungal rust may work crumbled long ago. Even supposedly impermeable mats laid on land have been, literally, punctured. The government is panicking. This problem plant costs nothing to spread but millions to defend against. Officials have spent more than £1.6 billion, 170 times the amount allocated to their biodiversity plan, but have got nowhere near the root of this knotty problem. Specialists can charge £40,000 to clear 5 square metres of the weed. Such is the concern that the government has recently started treating it on a par with nuclear waste. The removal of a solitary plant resembles a military operation. The Environment Agency, petrified of this ingenious nemesis, has produced a 37-page knotweed manual, which recommends digging away an area 7 metres around each plant and 3 metres deep: almost 600 cubic metres. The specimen should be removed and incarcerated 5 metres deep at a licensed landfill site. This is the only way to kill her for sure, but it has become so expensive and time-consuming that no one can be bothered. Call it natural selection, call it botanical genocide, call it what you will: the day of the Triffids is getting closer. You will hasten that day, helping this nefarious weed to overrun Europe, and sending indigenous species fleeing for cover.
Rooted in the land
Good day, Earthlings. Another Monday morning in 2017, the start of another working week under the occupation. The traffic bulletin offers a round-up of the usual pandemonium. Gridlock again on the M25 due to a weed burrowing beneath the fast lane. Near Doncaster a derailed train lies on its side after subsidence caused by a rampant plant. In the streets, commuters trudge to work in the shadow of towering stems that have pushed up through the pavement. Everywhere, the city’s streets are avenues of solid, swaying greenery. In this twilight world, cars flash past with headlamps on at midday. The news brings little respite. A school in Wales has been crushed by a falling wall, pushed over by an untamed tendril. Knotweed has burst into the House of Commons, this time directly through the speaker’s chair. The Queen is reportedly throwing a hissy fit because the Buckingham Palace herbaceous borders – the most heavily defended flowerbeds in the UK – have, again, been overrun.
Spreading the knotweed is child’s play, but the plant’s destructive tendencies ensure ultimate satisfaction. All you need do is ferry some cuttings about the continent and scatter them liberally whenever and wherever the mood takes you. Unarguably, this is one of the most straightforward means of defacing the planet. The challenge lies in blanketing an entire landmass in her shade, the creation of the first monocultural continent. This is the true meaning of going green.
Evidence indicates that Europe’s entire collection of indigenous fauna and wildlife could not survive a knotweed kingdom. When the plant wrested control of a Cornish valley in 2007, choking the landscape with a 7-mile bank of weed, naturalists recorded a mass exodus: dippers, grey wagtails, Daubenton bats, bluebells, and thrift all scarpered. Even the yellow flag surrendered without having time to change hue. Species have a choice; they either fight or flee. And the recent past shows that the former is futile.
Back to the roots
To get Europe knotted you will first need to locate the weed. This won’t be too problematic. Already she has spread from Land’s End to the northern tip of the Isle of Lewis, her striking good looks immediately noticeable; a touch of bamboo bristling with fluffy white flowers and orangey-yellow roots, quite fetching on every level. Only the Orkneys have escaped so far. Scour rubbish tips or derelict land; deserted places where you won’t be disturbed. If you are, merely pretend to be a good citizen cutting down the ubiquitous weed (cutting or mowing encourages its spread, but you will conveniently forget to mention that bit). Knotweed spreads using its rhizomes – its roots – and a fragment as light as 0.08 grams – fingertip size – is all that is required to grow another plant. With her labyrinthine roots encompassing an area the size and depth of a subterranean swimming pool there is no shortage of incendiary material.
Fill several dozen bin bags with rhizomes and place in the back of a truck with blacked-out windows. Inside the truck, start shredding the roots into pea-sized pieces, a tedious process offset by the knowledge that each tiny shred is sufficient to start a fresh colony in a location of your choosing. As you leave, be sure to drive over the dig site; scraps of knotweed stuck to tyres have, in the past, facilitated cross-country transfer with triumphant results.
Sow the seed
Now for the fun bit. The list of attack sites is innumerable. Some are fairly obvious but, really, it’s up to you. Go crazy. National Parks are particularly fair game as, clearly, is any site considered naturally exquisite. Thrill-seekers might want to share their cargo with the grounds of Balmoral or Buckingham Palace. Prince Charles’s organic estate at Highgrove exerts a certain pull, as does the prime minister’s country residence at Chequers. Catapults armed with pellets of knotweed rhizomes and weighed down with pebbles seem an obvious tactic for penetrating such hallowed grounds. Maybe consider a remote-controlled plane with remotely activated fuselage doors to release knotweed bombs. Target the gardens of folk like Alan Titchmarsh, whose penchant for televised botany more than justifies such actions. The world-famous Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. The Royal Horticultural Society’s showcase at Wisley. The list is endless. Scatter knotweed roots into the Thames to float downstream and impregnate the banks. They might even drift out to sea and contaminate some faraway land. Risk her remains on the playing fields of major sports stadia – Anfield, Aintree or central