In May 2019, a report by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) announced that there are more than one million endangered species on the planet, and that human activities are one of the main causes of this frenzy of biodiversity loss.
The UN cites five direct drivers: changes in land and sea use, resource exploitation, climate change, pollution, and invasive alien species. According to the organization, since 1980 the cumulative records of exotic species have grown by 40% as a result of the increase in air and maritime transport. Commercial activities and the increase in passenger travel between continents are the perfect breeding ground for the arrival of organisms of all kinds to places where they did not exist before. Many species are unable to cross geographic barriers by themselves (mountain ranges, seas, glaciers), but human transport has facilitated unprecedented expansion.
While some of these exotic species do not cause any damage, others, the so-called invasives, are capable of affecting native species, the functions and the balance of ecosystems and, ultimately, also hamper human activities and cause serious economic and health losses.
About 12,000 of the species present in Europe are exotic, and of these it is estimated that approximately 10-15% behave as invasive. In addition, it is estimated that, in recent years, invasive alien species have cost the European Union at least 12 billion euros per year, and the number is growing.
The European Union is part of the Convention on Biological Diversity and therefore, as indicated in Article 8h of said Convention, “it will prevent the introduction, control or eradication of exotic species that threaten ecosystems, habitats or species “. To do this, it develops different strategies and management plans in which it gives “priority to those species that pose a greater risk to the conservation of threatened native fauna, flora or habitats, with particular attention to island biodiversity, as well as those that present greater possibilities of eradication ”.
