Making Money Fighting Weeds

South Africa has started a poverty-relief program where teams of workers are trained to recognize and remove alien plant species. This is part of the Ukuvuka Operation Firestop program, whose goal is to rid the region of invasive plants that are one of many causes of devastating alterations to the fire regime. The workers get paid by the Cape Peninsula National Park to remove pine trees and spray other invasive plants with herbicide. No info on exactly which species they are targeting, perhaps because South Africa has so many of them.