Institute of Biodiversity Conservation

Global Invasive Species Programme (GISP) promotes the ecosystem approach as being essential to the effective management of biological invasions

Invasive alien species are plants, animals or micro-organisms whose introduction and/or spread into a new ecosystem to which they are not native threatens biodiversity as well as food security, human health, trade, transport and economic development. Biodiversity is impacted negatively in a number of different ways including; competition, predation and herbivory, parasitism and pathogenesis, hybridization, facilitation e.g. by changing nutrients, air or water, and ecosystem processes but in all cases, the impact of the invasions and indeed the reason for the invasion phenomenon, is the interaction of the invasive species and the recipient ecosystem.

NAIROBI, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) — Although agriculture, particularly in the developing world, is often associated with massive deforestation, a study done by scientists from the World Agroforestry Centre detailing satellite imagery, says almost half of all farmed landscapes worldwide include significant tree cover. The findings were announced on Monday at the opening of the 2ndWorld Congress of Agroforestry, which is being held in Nairobi, Kenya this week. This is the first study to quantify the extent to which trees are a vital part of agricultural production in all regions of the world. It reveals that on more than one billion hectares — which makeup 46 percent of the world’s farmlands and are home to more than half a billion people — tree cover exceeds 10 percent.

The conservation group, Birdlife International, has called on birders around the world to keep an eye out for birds classified—some over a centruy ago—as extinct.

“History has shown us that we shouldn’t give up on species that are feared to have gone to their graves because some, such as Cebu Flowerpecker, have been rediscovered long after they were feared extinct, providing hope for the continued survival of other ‘long-lost’ species. Cebu Flowerpecker, of the Philippines, was only rediscovered at the eleventh hour just before the last remnants of its forest home were destroyed,” said Dr. Marco Lambertini, BirdLife International’s chief executive.