International Efforts to Address Invasive Species Problem

The problem of invasive species was recognized by the scientific community as early as 1950s but wider public awareness is still limited in most parts of the world. The Article 8(h) of Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), signed by 161 countries at the Earth Summit in 1992, calls upon participating nations to "prevent the introduction of (and to) control or eradicate those alien species, which threaten ecosystems, habitats or (native) species." The issue was also highlighted during the 1996 World Conservation Congress in Montreal. Two years later, IUCN- The World Conservation held a Global Initiative workshop on Invasive Species in California. Multilateral initiatives around the world have begun addressing the problems of alien invasive species. To address the alien invasive species problems first attempt was made at world level when the Norway-UN Conference on aliens was held in Norway in 1996. At this meeting, scientists involved with invasive species including the program of the Scientific Committee on Problems in the Environment (SCOPE), joined with representatives of over 80 countries to look at the invasive species on a global scale and as a problem in international development. Out of this meeting grew the Global Invasive Species Program (GISP), an initiative which combines scientific research with development initiatives to raise awareness and capacity worldwide. GISP is a component of DIVERSITAS, an international program on biodiversity science.

At operational level GISP is a partnership between SCOPE, the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment and three intergovernmental organizations: the World Conservation Union( IUCN) , the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the CAB International (CABI). These three organizations have the particular task of ensuring that GISP achieves its potential relative to the convention on Biological Diversity and International Development. Under this program workshops were held at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 22-27 March 1999 to focus on the subject of invasive species Management and Early Warning Systems and developing practical tools for countries and communities. The workshops concluded that the toolkits should comprise a web based text from which excerpts could be down loaded and printed, that links be established to a data base of known invasive species with links to further information sources on the internet or elsewhere; and that the text would be credited as designed by the workshops participants. The workshops designed and partially drafted such a text, reviewed data fields for the invasives database and provided the Early Warning Group with suggestions of priority species for inclusion in their database of the 100 Worst Invasive Species.