Invasive Alien Species

Participants are invited to consider the guiding questions provided below, and to use this space to share comments on annex III only.

1. Does the annex have enough information related to natural disasters and land use change issues associated with climate change?

2. Can climate-modelling be useful for risk assessment process to assess the introduction and transfer of species? And if so, how to reflect it on the annex.

3. Does the annex reflect clearly the issue of pathogens, disease vectors and reservoirs in the context of IAS as consequences of climate change?

Good morning/afternoon/evening.

I am Pablo Innecken from the FAO Indigenous Peoples Unit. In Annex 3, paragraph 10, item H on Planning and prevention, the text call to collect best practices of indigenous peoples on the monitoring, controlling and mitigation of the impacts of invasive alien species caused by climate change.

I believe data collection concerning Indigenous Peoples should follow the principle of free prior and informed consent (FPIC) at all levels. Thus, the paragraph should call for collaborate with Indigenous Peoples to collect best practices, according to their FPIC.

Dear, all participants Tashidele, Namaste,
Nepal Indigenous Nationalities Preservation Associations NINPA. Would like to share our views:

The Indigenous Peoples of Nepal have the following views on invasive alien species (IAS) in relation to the annex:

regarding natural disaster and land use change issues associated with climate change, the indigenous people of Nepal believe that the annex should provide more information on these topics to address their impact
on IAS. This includes understanding how how natural disasters and change in land use contribute to the introduction and spread of invasive species.
The indigenous people of Nepal suggest incorporating climate modeling
into the risk assessment to evaluate the introduction and transfer of species. they believe climate modeling can be a valuable tool for assessing the potential risks associated with the climate change and its impacts on IAS. Integrating this approach into the annex would enhance its effectiveness.

The indigenous peoples of Nepal feel that the annex should explicitly address the issue of  pathogens, disease vectors, and reservoirs in the context of IAS as consequences of climate change. they emphasize the importance of understanding how climate change influences the spread of diseases through invasive species and believe that addressing this issues directly in the annex would strengthen its comprehensiveness.

The Indigenous Peoples of Nepal recommend enhancing the annex by including more information on natural disaster and land use change, integrating climate modeling for risk assessment, and explicitly addressing pathogens, disease vectors, and reservoirs as consequences of climate change. These additions would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of climate change on IAS and improve the effectiveness of the annex.
Thank you very much,

Good morning/Good afternoon,

My name is Rachel Ariey-Jouglard, representing the Government of Canada (Environment and Climate Change Canada).

Annexe III discusses the associated potential risks that climate change has in relation to invasive alien species, but does not clearly define its relationship. Is climate change simply seen as an enabling factor for species invasions, or a driver? Defining climate changes role may help guide efforts moving forward. The IPBES Thematic Assessment of IAS and their controls may help be more specific about the role of climate change as an enabling factor or a driver of species invasions. 

Canada agrees that the inclusion of Indigenous peoples on planning and prevention is important, and suggests that Paragraphs linked to Indigenous peoples also include references to Traditional Knowledge as well. In addition, with regards to other stakeholders that should be included, we suggest that zoonotic disease experts and animal welfare specialists could be included in the list of specialists to engage with, for they may otherwise be overlooked in reference to Paragrah 10.

My name is Penny Becker and I´m the Vice President Conservation from Island Conservation. We agree with Ms. Rachel Ariey-Jouglard’s comment on the need to better define the relationship between the associated potential risks that climate change has in relation to invasive alien species. I would like to share a paper that was released on this topic which is coauthored by my Island Conservation colleagues.
Kappes, P.J.; Benkwitt, C.E.; Spatz, D.R.; Wolf, C.A.; Will, D.J.; Holmes, N.D. Do Invasive Mammal Eradications from Islands Support Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation? Climate 2021, 9, 172.
You can find it in the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/9/12/172/htm

Greetings, my name is Stas Burgiel and I serve as the Executive Director for the U.S. National Invasive Species Council (NISC). In addition to the previous comments, I’d like to add the following points.

Addressing climate changes, impacts on biodiversity, and their linkage to IAS will present increasing challenges to decision-makers and land managers in terms of issues to prioritize and allocation of resources. Such decision-makers will need frameworks to help inform decisions particularly around the movement or range shift of species both native and alien responding to climate change as well as their potential impacts or benefits. As such, it may be useful to include reference to frameworks such as Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD https://www.nps.gov/subjects/climatechange/resistacceptdirect.htm and https://www.usgs.gov/programs/climate-adaptation-science-centers/science/resist-accept-direct-rad-framework) and Resistance-Resilience-Transformation (RRT – see Peterson St-Laurent, G.et al. [2021]. R–R–T (resistance–resilience–transformation) typology reveals differential conservation approaches across ecosystems and time. Communications Biology, 4(1), 39. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-01556-2.) There is limited application with regard to IAS to date, and additional application in this area is encouraged.

With regard to natural disasters and land use change, the annex could include additional reference to the movement of debris post-disaster as a potential pathway for movement of IAS. Additionally, a listing of natural disasters and extreme weather events along with their potential role in introducing or spreading IAS could be useful. In this regard, in the U.S. the interplay between wildland fire and IAS is increasingly becoming a concern in changing historical fire regimes. Additionally, NISC is currently working on identifying the types of information and communication flows to inform emergency response and recovery efforts about the risk of IAS.
With regard to climate-modelling and risk assessment processes, many risk assessment tools currently used to assess the risk of introduction of IAS when developing national regulations for entry of a product are based on current conditions to determine the possible range of the species in the importing country. Models using likely climate change scenarios in the future could be used to add additional information related to risks under climate change.

With regard to pathogens, disease vectors and reservoirs, there seems to be a lack of detail on specific questions and approaches. Climate change and related impacts on organisms are dynamic processes. Risk assessments should include, whenever possible, several time spans (baseline compared to e.g. 2050s, 2080s, etc.) in order to acknowledge the dynamic nature of a potential climate change effect on pests and other organisms. There is a strong need to develop appropriate working frameworks, for example, to guide planning and prioritization of climate change research related to pests.

This leads to a difficult question: which of the many potential IAS species worldwide are appropriate to study potential effects of climate change and which locations and methodologies might be particularly well suited? It might be equally important to identify potentially sensitive regions in which to target more detailed climate change research in the future. This could benefit from partnerships between countries or regions to make use of complementary and synergistic effects that can be generated through international research collaborations. A general characterization of potential climate change effects on specific taxa of species could be quite useful in order to reduce the overall experimental workload. However, generalization to date has been difficult. Thus, risk assessments currently need to be performed on a species-by-species and location-by-location basis (see Juroszek, P., & Von Tiedemann, A. [2013]. Plant pathogens, insect pests and weeds in a changing global climate: a review of approaches, challenges, research gaps, key studies and concepts. The Journal of Agricultural Science, 151(2), 163-188. doi:10.1017/S0021859612000500)