《IUCN Guidelines for the Prevention of Biodiversity Loss caused by Alien Invasive Species》.pdf

IUCN GUIDELINES FOR THE PREVENTION OF BIODIVERSITY LOSS CAUSED BY ALIEN INVASIVE SPECIES Prepared by the SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group Approved by the 51st Meeting of the IUCN Council, Gland Switzerland, February 2000 1. BACKGROUND(1) Biological diversity faces many threats throughout the world. One of the major threats to native biological diversity is now acknowledged by scientists and governments to be biological invasions caused by alien invasive species. The impacts of alien invasive species are immense, insidious, and usually irreversible. They may be as damaging to native species and ecosystems on a global scale as the loss and degradation of habitats. For millennia, the natural barriers of oceans, mountains, rivers and deserts provided the isolation essential for unique species and ecosystems to evolve. In just a few hundred years these barriers have been rendered ineffective by major global forces that combined to help alien species travel vast distances to new habitats and become alien invasive species. The globalisation and growth in the volume of trade and tourism, coupled with the emphasis on free trade, provide more opportunities than ever before for species to be spread accidentally or deliberately. Customs and quarantine practices, developed in an earlier time to guard against human and economic diseases and pests, are often inadequate safeguards against species that threaten native biodiversity. Thus the inadvertent ending of millions of years of biological isolation has created major ongoing problems that affect developed and developing countries. The scope and cost of biological alien invasions is global and enormous, in both ecological and economic terms. Alien invasive species are found in all taxonomic groups: they include introduced viruses, fungi, algae, mosses, ferns, higher plants, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. They have invaded and affected native biota in virtually every ecosyst