A recent training seminar held in Trinidad earlier this month (June 9-11, 2010) discussed the impact and costs of Invasive Alien Species (IAS). Over 30 participants from the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and Trinidad & Tobago attended ““Enhancing the capacity of the Caribbean to measure the economic impact of IAS.”
The seminar featured specialists such as Dr. Govind Seepersad, Lecturer in Agricultural Economics at the University of the West Indies-St Augustine, who explained that “the economic costs of invasive alien species are beyond what farmers spend to control the pest and beyond the resources that agricultural scientists employ to determine best control strategies or loss in trade opportunities.”
Invasive Alien Species are plants, animals, or micro-organisms in all major taxonomic groups of organisms that are not native to an ecosystem, such as, viruses, fungi, algae, mosses, ferns, higher plants, insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. An alien species is considered invasive when it arrives, survives, and thrives. These species out-compete native organisms for food and habitat; they spread through the new environment, increase their population, and harm the ecosystems they inhabit.
As an economist, Dr. Seepersad was able to see the great losses that occur when eliminating an IAS, such as the virtual elimination of hibiscus from the ornamental plant trade in trying to eradicate the Pink Hibiscus Mealy Bug or the more than 50% loss of production of coconuts (resulting in significant increases in coconut prices) in trying to eliminate the Red Palm Mite. He pointed out all sorts of hidden costs that the public rarely sees, for example, road repairs that are needed because of the coastal erosion due to loss of trees caused by the palm mite and the decrease in tourism.
For full article, see http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news-23736–41-41–.html
[Shown here a pink hibiscus and Pink Hibiscus Mealy Bug from http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/ipc/biocontrol/83pinkhibiscusmealybug.htm.]
