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The global increase in biological invasions is placing growing pressure on the management of ecological and economic systems. However, the effectiveness of current management expenditure is difficult to assess due to a lack of standardised measurement across spatial, taxonomic and temporal scales. Furthermore, there is no quantification of the spending difference between pre-invasion (e.g. prevention) and post-invasion (e.g. control) stages, although preventative measures are considered to be the most cost-effective. Here, we use a comprehensive database of invasive alien species economic costs (InvaCost) to synthesise and model the global management costs of biological invasions, in order to provide a better understanding of the stage at which these expenditures occur.

The First United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (also known as the Earth Summit) acknowledged that SIDS are a special case for sustainable development (given their unique and particular vulnerabilities).This gave rise to the First International Conference on SIDS in 1994 and the Barbados Program of Action (BPOA) which is the main policy framework addressing the economic, social and environmental vulnerabilities facing SIDS. The sustainable development of SIDS was also at the heart of the Second International Conference on SIDS held in Mauritius in 2005, and the “Mauritius Strategy for the further implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States” was adopted and subsequently endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 (Rio+20) agreed to convene the Third International Conference on SIDS in 2014. This was later endorsed by the UN General Assembly (UNGA). “The Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) through Genuine and Durable Partnerships” will be held in Samoa in September 2014. FAO has been involved in supporting SIDS in addressing sustainable development issues and has contributed to the regional preparatory process (i.e. Caribbean, Pacific and AIMS regions) as well as the inter-regional and global consultation process held at the UN Headquarters in New York in February 2014. The outcome documents of these preparatory meetings specifically mention topics that are relevant to FAO’s core areas such as coastal zone management and ecosystem based approaches, institutional capacity to deter illegal, unreported and unregulated fisheries and increased attention to small-scale fisheries. Climate change is also highlighted as a threat to food security, natural resources (land, water, forest and biodiversity) and marine and coastal resources. This paper focuses on the environmental challenges of sustainable development issues with particular attention to natural resource management, environment and climate change in the food and agriculture sector (including crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry). FAO’s agriculture, fisheries, forestry and technical assistance programmes provide considerable resources to assist member countries promote conservation, sustainable use and management of natural resources and to reduce the risks associated with climate extremes as well as resilience building.

This edition of The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets focuses on the complex and underexplored intersection between agricultural trade, climate change and food security. It is clear that we cannot tackle hunger without finding adaptation and mitigation solutions to climate change in agriculture and food systems. It is also clear that the uneven impact of climate change across regions and countries, and the corresponding changes in food availability and access will affect international trade patterns and trade routes. This report supports these discussions by providing an in-depth analysis of the Paris Agreement and the WTO agreements to enhance clarity and provide guidance on policy options that could strengthen the mutually supportive role of these accords in tackling climate change and hunger. Wide-ranging policy actions are necessary to ensure that trade will contribute to the efforts aimed at ensuring food security and promoting adaptation and mitigation to climate change. The uneven impact of climate change across the world and its implications for agricultural trade, especially for developing countries, underlines the need for a balanced approach to policies, which should enhance the adaptive role of trade, while supporting the most vulnerable.

The SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway underscores the need for a more integrated approach to sustainable development as emphasized in the 2030 Agenda. It calls for strengthened international cooperation and partnerships, with adequate investment and coordinated implementation, to address and halt the persistent development challenges of SIDS. As a key follow-up to the SAMOA Pathway, the Global Action Programme on Food Security and Nutrition in Small Island Developing States (GAP) aims to accelerate action on food security and nutrition in SIDS. It is intended as a tangible contribution to the integrated implementation of the 2030 Agenda.The GAP recommends action at global, regional, national and local level. The overarching outcomes of the GAP are to create enabling environments for food security and nutrition; to transform food systems to improve their nutrition-sensitivity, resilience and sustainability; and to empower people and communities to lead healthy and productive lives.

Agriculture and food production offer stable livelihood options to rural communities throughout Asia and the Pacific region. Even as the effects of globalization spread in the region, farm production – most often at the smallholder level – continues to be a family enterprise. A fair share of farmers in the region engages in subsistence farming and poverty is a common occurrence among them. Farm enterprises are mostly managed by family members and family labour is a critical asset and often the only reliable investment. As rural women and men toil to preserve their heritage and broaden their economic choices, their endeavours are made more difficult by a lack of resources and market fluctuations. Asian and Pacific farmers, both men and women, are guardians of biodiversity, household food security and providers of food to urban communities. In these small farm enterprises distinct gender roles and gender differentiated access to technology and resources are evident. This disparity is compounded by the neglect of investment in rural social infrastructures such as education, health care and communications. In such resource poor rural environments, the struggle by rural women for access to resources and services is inevitable. In many Asian and Pacific countries, substantial gender equality gains have been made in urban areas in education, health and employment. Yet rural women lag behind. Moreover, rural women’s work is multifaceted and demanding both as family workers and agricultural labourers. Social and economic indicators often do not do justice to their contributions. Development innovations such as microcredit and self-help groups promote rural women’s economic development, but emerging evidence suggests that gender equality in rural communities is far from an everyday reality. Persisting social biases and traditional perceptions and assumptions regarding women’s responsibilities and their capacities continue to hamper women’s progress. This publication presents an overview of both the substantial contribution made by rural women to the economies in the region and the persisting barriers to their advancement. The framework of analysis, data and information reviewed together illustrate the complexity of rural women’s work in the region and offer a broad perspective on women’s economic and social contribution as well as on the barriers they encounter in accessing resources.

The three most invasive rat species, black or ship rat Rattus rattus, brown or Norway rats, R. norvegicus and Pacific rat, R. exulans have been incrementally introduced to islands as humans have explored the world’s oceans. They have caused serious deleterious effects through predation and competition, and extinction of many species on tropical islands, many of which are biodiversity hotspots. All three rat species are found in virtually all habitat types, including mangrove and arid shrub land. Black rats tend to dominate the literature but despite this the population biology of invasive rats, particularly Norway rats, is poorly researched on tropical islands. Pacific rats can often exceed population densities of well over 100 rats ha?1 and black rats can attain densities of 119 rats ha?1, which is much higher than recorded on most temperate islands. High densities are possibly due to high recruitment of young although the data to support this are limited. The generally aseasonally warm climate can lead to year-round breeding but can be restricted by either density-dependent effects interacting with resource constraints often due to aridity. Apparent adverse impacts on birds have been well recorded and almost all tropical seabirds and land birds can be affected by rats. On the Pacific islands, black rats have added to declines and extinctions of land birds caused initially by Pacific rats. Rats have likely caused unrecorded extinctions of native species on tropical islands. Further research required on invasive rats on tropical islands includes the drivers of population growth and carrying capacities that result in high densities and how these differ to temperate islands, habitat use of rats in tropical vegetation types and interactions with other tropical species, particularly the reptiles and invertebrates, including crustaceans.

Invasive ants are a diverse group of aggressive, competitive, dominating ant species that can rapidly establish and spread. Several ant species are amongst the most serious global invasive species. Their broad diets, nesting habits, ability to breed rapidly, high densitites and adaptibility to varied habitats make them excellent invaders. Agricultural economic, environmental and social wellbeing are threatened by these ants, many of which have been introduced to, and established in, many countries

While invasive species eradications are at the forefront of biodiversity conservation, ant eradication failures are common. We reviewed ant eradications worldwide to assess the practice and identify knowledge gaps and challenges. We documented 316 eradication campaigns targeting 11 species, with most occurring in Australia covering small areas (b10 ha). Yellow crazy ant was targeted most frequently, while the bigheaded ant has been eradicated most often. Of the eradications with known outcomes, 144 campaigns were successful, totaling approximately 9500 ha, of which 8300 ha were from a single campaign that has since been partially re-invaded. Three active ingredients, often in combination, are most commonly used: fipronil, hydramethylnon, and juvenile hormone mimics. Active ingredient, bait, and method varied considerablywith respect to species targeted,which made assessing factors of eradication success challenging. We did, however, detect effects by active ingredient, number of treatments, and method on eradication success. Implementation costs increased with treatment area, and median costs were high compared to invasive mammal eradications. Ant eradications are in a phase of increased research and development, and a logical next step for practitioners is to develop best practices. A number of research themes that seek to integrate natural history with eradication strategies and methodologies would improve the ability to eradicate ants: increasing natural history and taxonomic knowledge, increasing the efficacy of active ingredients and baits, minimizing and mitigating non-target risks, developing better tools to declare eradication success, and developing alternative eradication methodologies. Invasive ant eradications are rapidly increasing in both size and frequency, and we envisage that eradicating invasive ants will increase in focus in coming decades given the increasing dispersal and subsequent impacts.

Rodents remain one of the most widespread and damaging invasive alien species on islands globally. The current toolbox for insular rodent eradications is reliant on the application of sufficient anticoagulant toxicant into every potential rodent territory across an island. Despite significant advances in the use of these toxicants over recent decades, numerous situations remain where eradication is challenging or not yet feasible. These include islands with significant human populations, unreceptive stakeholder communities, co-occurrence of livestock and domestic animals, or vulnerability of native species. Developments in diverse branches of science, particularly the medical, pharmaceutical, invertebrate pest control, social science, technology and defense fields offer potential insights into the next generation of tools to eradicate rodents from islands. Horizon scanning is a structured process whereby current problems are assessed against potential future solutions. We undertook such an exercise to identify the most promising technologies, techniques and approaches that might be applied to rodent eradications from islands. We highlight a Rattus-specific toxicant, RNA interference as species-specific toxicants, rodenticide research, crab deterrent in baits, prophylactic treatment for protection of non-target species, transgenic rodents, virus vectored immunocontraception, drones, self-resetting traps and toxicant applicators, detection probability models and improved stakeholder community engagement methods. We present a brief description of each method, and discuss its application to rodent eradication on islands, knowledge gaps, challenges, whether it is incremental or transformative in nature and provide a potential timeline for availability. We outline how a combination of new tools may render previously intractable rodent eradication problems feasible.

Rodent eradications undertaken on tropical islands are more likely to fail than eradications undertaken at higher latitudes. We report on 12 independent rodent eradication projects undertaken on tropical islands that utilized the results of an in situ bait availability study prior to eradication to inform, a priori, the bait application rate selected for the eradication. These projects also monitored bait availability during the eradication. The results from our analysis verified the utility of bait availability studies to future rodent eradication campaigns and confirmed the influence of two environmental factors that can affect bait availability over time: precipitation prior to the study and the abundance of land crabs at the study site. Our findings should encourage eradication teams to conduct in-depth assessments of the targeted island prior to project implementation. However, we acknowledge the limitations of such studies (two of the projects we reviewed failed and one removed only one of two rodent species present) and provide guidance on how to interpret the results from a bait availability study in planning an eradication. Study design was inconsistent among the twelve cases we reviewed which limited our analysis. We recommend a more standardized approach for measuring bait availability prior to eradication to provide more robust predictions of the rate at which bait availability will decrease during the eradication and to facilitate future comparisons among projects and islands.