INVASIVE
ALIEN SPECIES REPORT - ENVIRONMENT
News: Kerala
faces challenges from invasive alien species
What's
in the news?
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Kerala’s ecology, economy and biodiversity
face significant challenges from some of the world’s most damaging and
widespread invasive plant and animal species present in the State.
Key
takeaways:
●
Five of the 10 widespread alien species
around the globe are present in the State, viz. water hyacinth (known as
African payal in local parlance), Konkini or Arippoo (Lantana camara),
communist pacha (Chromolaena odorata), avanakku (Ricinus communis ) and ipil
ipil (Leucaena leucocephala), according to experts.
●
The
Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has
released its new publication – the “Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species
and their Control’’.
Key
Highlights of the Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species and their
Control:
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There are 37,000 alien species, including plants and animals, that have been
introduced by many human activities to regions and biomes around the world.
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More than 3,500 out of the 37,000
introduced alien species pose major global threats to nature, economy, food
security and human health.
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Invasive alien species (IAS) play a key
role in 60% of global plant and animal
extinctions, and cost humanity more than $400 billion a year and are one of
the five major direct drivers of biodiversity loss
○
The other four are land and sea use
change, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change and pollution.
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Most negative impacts are reported on land
(about 75%) – especially in forests, woodlands and cultivated areas – with
considerably fewer reported in freshwater (14%) and marine (10%) habitats.
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Invasive alien species are most damaging
on islands, with numbers of alien plants now exceeding the number of native
plants on more than 25% of all islands.
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The report has noted that the number of
alien species (species introduced to new regions through human activities) has
been rising continuously for centuries in all regions.
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However, these are now increasing at
unprecedented rates, with increased human travel, trade and the expansion of
the global economy.
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The report warned that warming temperatures and climate change
could favour the “expansion of invasive species’’.
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Not all alien species establish and spread
with negative impacts on biodiversity, local ecosystems and species, but a
significant proportion do – then becoming known as invasive alien species.
○
About 6% of alien plants; 22% of alien
invertebrates; 14% of alien vertebrates; and 11% of alien microbes are known to
be invasive, posing major risks to nature and to people.
○
Nearly 80% of the documented impacts of
invasive species on nature’s contribution to people are negative.
Examples
of invasive alien species:
●
The water
hyacinth is the world’s most widespread invasive alien species on land.
●
Lantana,
a flowering shrub, and the Black rat are the second and third most
widespread globally.
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The brown
rat and the house mouse are also widespread invasive alien species.
Global
economic cost of invasive alien species:
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The report said that the annual costs of
invasive alien species have at least quadrupled every decade since 1970, as
global trade and human travel increased.
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In 2019, the global economic cost of
invasive alien species exceeded $423 billion annually.