n Introduction
n Prerequisite information n Prevent
n Monitor n Intervene?
n Potential approaches
4
111 112
114 116 119 122 127
Volume 1. Practical information
Introduction
I
nvasive alien species cause major problems for the affected human populations and particularly for the authorities in the invaded areas who must set up and launch the measures intended to solve the problem.Well before the notion of biodiversity emerged in the scientific literature on ecology, proliferations of introduced plant and animal species had caused damage to human uses of the environment. In general, efforts were made to mitigate the impacts of biological invasions in order to enable the continued use of the sites in question.
Advances in scientific knowledge have contributed significantly to better understanding invasions, to better assessing their impacts and to designing corrective measures. Concrete measures undertaken by managers (see Box 17) are generally in response to considerable social pressures. Until recently, due to a lack of access to scientific and technical information, measures were often launched without waiting for instructions or information from outside the immediate area. On the basis of the available knowledge and resources, and the existing regulatory instruments, managers put together local projects, occasionally under crisis conditions.
Luckily, the situation has changed considerably since that time.
W
ho are the managers and what does management consist of?Managers
The term “manager” is derived from the term “management”, which is very vague and can be applied to a vast range of subjects and fields. A look in a dictionary indicates that management is the “act of managing”, generally the business of another person but also one’s own business. The verb “to manage” is synonymous with
“to administer” or “to regulate”. However, what would seem to be important in these definitions is that management concerns the business of other people. The “other people” are the owners of the land on which interventions take place and, in many cases, the work is conducted by public organisations on private land. That is effectively the case in most situations and being a manager essentially means handling the business of others.
Managers can take on a number of roles, ranging from public or private owners to appointed administrators, spanning all geographic scales and administrative echelons. But their role always consists of administering a given area, according to the many objectives, rights and responsibilities arising from the applicable regulations, as well as the forms of organisation, development and maintenance of natural environments. Concerning invasive alien species, the group of managers effectively confronting the problem, from many different angles, ranges from
Box 17
113 There are many difficulties involved in IAS management. Even if this opinion is increasingly shared by all
stakeholders, but does not make matters any easier for those effectively confronted with the problems, this enhanced awareness is a reason to hope that there will be significant improvements in management techniques in the years to come.
The difficulties do not reside exclusively in the technical aspects of the interventions required to reduce or eradicate the plant and animal populations deemed harmful in a given context. On the scale of a single manager, it may be possible to take only the technical aspects into account for a given project because they ensure effective results, however the same approach is not possible when the assessment and the correspon-ding measures address larger geographic, administrative and time scales.
This is because IAS flows, their expansion dynamics and their impacts result from a wide array of social processes that are often inextricably mixed and part of greater globalisation processes that certainly do not make the situation any simpler. Among the factors contributing to the difficulties are international trade and its regulations, leisure travel and other activities enabling the intentional or unintentional transportation of species, work on aquatic environments, greater and more diverse needs concerning aquatic environments even though many are now degraded, etc.
That is why widely shared knowledge of the basic elements forming the context of IAS management, ranging far beyond the strictly technical and local aspects addressed by a given manager confronted with a given IAS, would appear necessary if IAS management is to improve.
In this book, the term “manager” includes all the above, except as indicated otherwise.
Management
Concerning the issue at hand, the term “management” may be summed up in three very simple questions:
1) Is intervention a good idea?, 2) How can the problem be eliminated? or 3) How can we live with the problem?
A more formal definition might be “administration of the concrete impacts of biological invasions directly confron-ting the authorities of the invaded area who must design and effectively implement a policy” (Dutartre, 2010).
What does the notion of management cover? What should it include?
n Management comprises all aspects of the possible interventions against IASs, ranging from a prior assessment of the situation to effective implementation of corrective measures and the subsequent consequences of intervention.
n It necessarily includes strategic and technical decisions, and should include information on the objectives and planned modes of operation, indispensable elements in preparing an intervention.
nIt should also include an analysis of the situation as it pertains to the groups of people and their interests/needs in the concerned environments. Management is in fact the “site” where these groups of people can meet, discuss and debate issues.
nIt always brings into play groups of participants other than the managers and the directly concerned public and must engage these other groups (researchers, funding entities, etc.) in dialogue concerning a number of aspects (regulations, life sciences, human and social sciences, etc.).
Continuation of Box 17