Search the SPREP Catalogue

The aim of this toolkit is to provide a clear, user-friendly guide to the application of economic approaches and tools to invasive species. It addresses the issues associated with identifying the factors which cause the spread of invasives, incorporating consideration of invasive species into economic planning and policy-making, and identifying economic tools and measures to support on-the-ground management actions designed to address biological invasions. This toolkit has been produced for use in training courses to be held in Africa. It is targeted primarily at economists working in research and planning – in universities, research institutions, government agencies and non-governmental organisations. However, it is intended that the toolkit will also provide guidance on economics tools and approaches to scientists who are working on invasive species management.

Invasive alien mammals are the major driver of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation on islands. Over the past three decades, invasive mammal eradication from islands has become one of society's most powerful tools for preventing extinction of insular endemics and restoring insular ecosystems. As practitioners tackle larger islands for restoration, three factors will heavily influence success and outcomes: the degree of local support, the ability to mitigate for non-target impacts, and the ability to eradicate non-native species more cost-effectively. Investments in removing invasive species, however, must be weighed against the risk of reintroduction. One way to reduce reintroduction risks is to eradicate the target invasive species from an entire archipelago, and thus eliminate readily available sources. We illustrate the costs and benefits of this approach with the efforts to remove invasive goats from the Galápagos Islands. Project Isabela, the world's largest island restoration effort to date, removed > 140,000 goats from > 500,000 ha for a cost of US$10.5 million. Leveraging the capacity built during Project Isabela, and given that goat reintroductions have been common over the past decade, we implemented an archipelago-wide goat eradication strategy. Feral goats remain on three islands in the archipelago, and removal efforts are underway. Efforts on the Galápagos Islands demonstrate that for some species, island size is no longer the limiting factor with respect to eradication. Rather, bureaucratic processes, financing, political will, and stakeholder approval appear to be the new challenges. Eradication efforts have delivered a suite of biodiversity benefits that are in the process of revealing themselves. The costs of rectifying intentional reintroductions are high in terms of financial and human resources. Reducing the archipelago-wide goat density to low levels is a technical approach to reducing reintroduction risk in the short-term, and is being complemented with a longer-term social approach focused on education and governance.

Cites independent study by CESAR Consultants confirms that Fipronil ant bait has not accumulated in the envrionment on Christmas Island for the control of yellow crazy ant.

Invasive alien species represent an insidious and pervasive threat to the environmental, economic and human well-being of the Pacific islands. Pacific island ecosystems make up one of the world’s important biodiversity hotspots, with high numbers of endemic species that are particularly vulnerable to extinction due to their limited habitat and isolation.|This book is intended to serve as a practical guide, calling attention to the need to link emergencies, disasters and development, not only in policy statements, but in practical ways. The book identifies physical and social factors and processes determining disaster vulnerability and offers the reader a range of vulnerability-reduction options in development and disaster mitigation. The book covers the main relief and response technologies for a range of natural and technological disasters, and deals with community participation, health education, training and other social aspects relevant to the protection of health and the environment in emergencies and disasters.|The UNEP/GEF Prevention, Control and Management of Invasive Alien Species in the Pacific Islands project also known as the IAS project, commenced on 12 September 2012 and was due for completion on 30 September 2016, following an extension of one year. The project was designed to provide support to Pacific Island countries in their national efforts to implement the Guidelines for Invasive Species Management in the Pacific – a Pacific Strategy for managing pest, weeds and other invasive species (Tye 2009) which were developed and adopted as the regional strategic framework for invasive species management in 2009. Ten Pacific Island countries originally participated in the IAS project, these being the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu. These were reduced to nine countries with the withdrawal of Papua New Guinea following the Mid-Term Review due to issues related to the country’s readiness to engage with the project. The project was therefore, responsible for delivering of support to a culturally, geographically and economic diverse set of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) spread across the vast geographical scope of the Pacific Ocean. The project was implemented by the UN Environment as the Implementing Agency (IA) and Executed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) as the Executing Agency (EA). In-country sub projects and activities were facilitated by National Project Coordinators and overseen by national Invasive Species Coordinating Committees. Its goal "to conserve ecosystems, species and genetic diversity in the Pacific region" is broad and aspirational and is backed by the Objective "to reduce the environmental economic and human health impacts of invasive alien species in both terrestrial and marine habitats in the Pacific region". The Project consisted of 5 core components: Building foundations for sustainable Invasive Alien Species (IAS) management by generating awareness and support, building institution and human capacity and strengthening legislation, policy and protocols. Defining problems, prioritisation and decision making by improving baseline information on IAS distribution and status, establishing systems to assess risk and prioritise action and developing or utilising effective management techniques. Taking management action through improved bio-security and border protection, direct management action through eradication and application of best practice methods and restoring ecosystems after IAS management. Undertaking effective monitoring and evaluation of the project.| Establishing effective and efficient project management and governance. This Terminal Project Evaluation is undertaken by the Evaluation Office of the UN Environment in order to assess the effectiveness of the project and its likely future impact on the state of IAS management in the region and its likely impact on invasive species and the environmental health of the participating countries. Further, the report aims to discern lessons and offers recommendations which may help improve the development and implementation of similar multi-country projects in the future both in the Pacific region and globally.

Rodents are a key pest to agricultural and rural island communities of the South Pacific, but there is limited information of their impact on the crops and livelihoods of small-scale farmers. The rodent pest community is known, but the type and scales of damage to different crops on different islands are unknown. Knowledge about rodent pest management in other geographical regions may not be directly transferable to the Pacific region. Many studies on islands have largely focussed on the eradication of rodents from uninhabited islands for conservation benefits. These broadscale eradication efforts are unlikely to translate to inhabited islands because of complex social and agricultural issues. The livelihoods, culture and customs of poor small-scale farmers in the South Pacific have a large bearing on the current management of rodents. The aim of the present review was to describe the rodent problems, impacts and management of rodents on South Pacific islands, and identify gaps for further research. We compared and contrasted two case studies. The situation in Papua New Guinea is emergent as several introduced rodent species are actively invading new areas with wide-ranging implications for human livelihoods and conservation. In Vanuatu, we show how rodent damage on cocoa plantations can be reduced by good orchard hygiene through pruning and weeding, which also has benefits for the management of black pod disease. We conclude that (1) damage levels are unknown and unreported, (2) the impacts on human health are unknown, (3) the relationships between the pest species and their food sources, breeding and movements are not known, and (4) the situation in Papua New Guinea may represent an emergent crisis that warrants further investigation. In addition, there is a need for greater understanding of the invasive history of pest rodents, so as to integrate biological information with management strategies. Ecologically based rodent management can be achieved on Pacific Islands, but only after significant well funded large-scale projects are established and rodent ecologists are trained. We can learn from experiences from other locations such as Southeast Asia to guide the way.

With the wide acceptance of forest?protection policies in the developing world comes a requirement for clear demonstrations of how deforestation may erode human well?being and economies. For centuries, it has been believed that forests provide protection against flooding. However, such claims have given rise to a heated polemic, and broad?scale quantitative evidence of the possible role of forests in flood protection has not been forthcoming. Using data collected from 1990 to 2000 from 56 developing countries, we show using generalized linear and mixed?effects models contrasted with information?theoretic measures of parsimony that flood frequency is negatively correlated with the amount of remaining natural forest and positively correlated with natural forest area loss (after controlling for rainfall, slope and degraded landscape area). The most parsimonious models accounted for over 65% of the variation in flood frequency, of which nearly 14% was due to forest cover variables alone. During the decade investigated, nearly 100?000 people were killed and 320 million people were displaced by floods, with total reported economic damages exceeding US$1151 billion. Extracted measures of flood severity (flood duration, people killed and displaced, and total damage) showed some weaker, albeit detectable correlations to natural forest cover and loss. Based on an arbitrary decrease in natural forest area of 10%, the model?averaged prediction of flood frequency increased between 4% and 28% among the countries modeled. Using the same hypothetical decline in natural forest area resulted in a 4–8% increase in total flood duration. These correlations suggest that global?scale patterns in mean forest trends across countries are meaningful with respect to flood dynamics. Unabated loss of forests may increase or exacerbate the number of flood?related disasters, negatively impact millions of poor people, and inflict trillions of dollars in damage in disadvantaged economies over the coming decades. This first global?scale empirical demonstration that forests are correlated with flood risk and severity in developing countries reinforces the imperative for large?scale forest protection to protect human welfare, and suggests that reforestation may help to reduce the frequency and severity of flood?related catastrophes.