Aliens Newsletter - ISSG

News from the ISSG
The Invasive Species of the Week
Following the brilliant idea from the IUCN Red
List Species of the Day, ISSG using the same
concept has launched the ‘Invasive Species of
the Week’ to raise awareness of the impacts of
invasive species on native biodiversity and
threatened ecosystems.
We have created a button which can be placed
on your website, which will link to a PDF file
of the weekly species fact sheet. A code needs
to be embedded into your site. Once this code
has been added to your website, no further
changes on your part are necessary; the button
will link to a different invasive species each
week automatically with a change in the image
on the button.
The code is as follows:
The feature has been adopted by several websites
and has proved to be very popular.
Supporting the development of an early
warning system in Europe
The ISSG and ISPRA have worked, under a
contract with the European Environment
Agency, at a report on “Towards an early
warning and information system for invasive
alien species (IAS) threatening biodiversity in
Europe”, that has assessed the feasibility of
establishing a European early warning framework.
As a follow up, it has recently been decided
to publish an abridged version as an
EEA Technical Report to be used as a basis
for future policy developments at the regional
scale, and particularly in the context of the
recent European Commission (EC) communications,
among which “Towards an EU Strat-
egy on Invasive Species” (2008).
The EEA Technical Report is available online
at:
http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/information-system-invasive-alien-species/
Island Invasives: Eradication and Management
Conference
Several ISSG members participated and made
valuable contributions to the ‘Island Invasives:
Eradication and Management Conference’ held
at the Tamaki campus, University of Auckland,
New Zealand during February 2010. Over 240
people from 25 countries participated in this
conference. Dr. Piero Genovesi, Chair of ISSG
gave the keynote address titled ‘Are we turning
the tide? Eradications in times of crisis; how
the global community is responding to biological
invasions’.
Volcanic eruption in Iceland slows down IAS
policy progress
At its 9 th meeting, the CBD Conference of the
Parties requested the Executive Secretary to
collaborate with relevant international organizations
with a view to exchange information on
the regulatory frameworks, and to seek out
means to address the gaps and inconsistencies
of the international regulatory framework in relation
to invasive alien species. Following this
decision, the CBD Executive Secretariat has established
an Inter-Agency Liaison Group on Invasive
Alien Species, and has invited ISSG to
be part of it. The first meeting of the liaison
group was planned to take place at the headquarters
of the World Organisation for Animal
Health (OIE) in Paris last 19-20 April, but unfortunately,
because of the flight ban due to the
cloud of ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland,
the meeting had to be postponed.
2 29/2010