TY - JOUR
T1 - Biological invasions in World Heritage Sites
T2 - current status and a proposed monitoring and reporting framework
AU - Shackleton, Ross T.
AU - Bertzky, Bastian
AU - Wood, Louisa E.
AU - Bunbury, Nancy
AU - Jäger, Heinke
AU - van Merm, Remco
AU - Sevilla, Christian
AU - Smith, Kevin
AU - Wilson, John R.U.
AU - Witt, Arne B.R.
AU - Richardson, David M.
N1 - Funding Information:
We acknowledge funding from the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology, the office of the Vice Rector: Research, Innovation and Post-Graduate Studies at Stellenbosch University (a “Consolidoc” Grant to RTS), the National Research Foundation, South Africa (Grant 85417 to DMR), the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust (Grant OMT 18576/03 to DMR). JRUW thanks the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFtE) for funding, noting that this publication does not necessarily represent the views of DFFtE or its employees. This publication is contribution number 2194 of the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands. We thank Elena Osipova and Yichuan Shi at IUCN for sharing the threats data from the 2014 and 2017 IUCN World Heritage Outlook assessments and for their advice. Many people kindly provided information for the case studies for which we are most grateful, including Charlotte Causton, Marilyn Cruz, Viviana Duque, Lesley Henderson, Guyonne Janss, Rocio Fernandez-Zamuido, Mavis Moyo, Calvin Murakami, Malvika Onial, Kuppusamy Sivakumar, Darragh Woodford and John Richard Mbwambo. Piero Genovesi and Mizuki Murai commented on early versions of the manuscript and provided valuable suggestions. Finally, we thank the reviewers whose detailed comments helped to shape and improve this manuscript considerably. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of IUCN or other contributory organisations.
Funding Information:
We acknowledge funding from the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology, the office of the Vice Rector: Research, Innovation and Post-Graduate Studies at Stellenbosch University (a ?Consolidoc? Grant to RTS), the National Research Foundation, South Africa (Grant 85417 to DMR), the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust (Grant OMT 18576/03 to DMR). JRUW thanks the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFtE) for funding, noting that this publication does not necessarily represent the views of DFFtE or its employees. This publication is contribution number 2194 of the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands. We thank Elena Osipova and Yichuan Shi at IUCN for sharing the threats data from the 2014 and 2017 IUCN World Heritage Outlook assessments and for their advice. Many people kindly provided information for the case studies for which we are most grateful, including Charlotte Causton, Marilyn Cruz, Viviana Duque, Lesley Henderson, Guyonne Janss, Rocio Fernandez-Zamuido,?Mavis Moyo, Calvin Murakami, Malvika Onial, Kuppusamy Sivakumar, Darragh Woodford and John Richard Mbwambo. Piero Genovesi and Mizuki Murai commented on early versions of the manuscript and provided valuable suggestions. Finally, we thank the reviewers whose detailed comments helped to shape and improve this manuscript considerably. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of IUCN or other contributory organisations.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/10/1
Y1 - 2020/10/1
N2 - UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) are areas of outstanding universal value and conservation importance. They are, however, threatened by a variety of global change drivers, including biological invasions. We assessed the current status of biological invasions and their management in 241 natural and mixed WHS globally by reviewing documents collated by UNESCO and IUCN. We found that reports on the status of biological invasions in WHS were often irregular or inconsistent. Therefore, while some reports were very informative, they were hard to compare because no systematic method of reporting was followed. Our review revealed that almost 300 different invasive alien species (IAS) were considered as a threat to just over half of all WHS. Information on IAS management undertaken in WHS was available for fewer than half of the sites that listed IAS as a threat. There is clearly a need for an improved monitoring and reporting system for biological invasions in WHS and likely the same for other protected areas globally. To address this issue, we developed a new framework to guide monitoring and reporting of IAS in protected areas building on globally accepted standards for IAS assessments, and tested it on seven WHS. The framework requires the collation of information and reporting on pathways, alien species presence, impacts, and management, the estimation of future threats and management needs, assessments of knowledge and gaps, and, using all of this information allows for an overall threat score to be assigned to the protected area. This new framework should help to improve monitoring of IAS in protected areas moving forward.
AB - UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) are areas of outstanding universal value and conservation importance. They are, however, threatened by a variety of global change drivers, including biological invasions. We assessed the current status of biological invasions and their management in 241 natural and mixed WHS globally by reviewing documents collated by UNESCO and IUCN. We found that reports on the status of biological invasions in WHS were often irregular or inconsistent. Therefore, while some reports were very informative, they were hard to compare because no systematic method of reporting was followed. Our review revealed that almost 300 different invasive alien species (IAS) were considered as a threat to just over half of all WHS. Information on IAS management undertaken in WHS was available for fewer than half of the sites that listed IAS as a threat. There is clearly a need for an improved monitoring and reporting system for biological invasions in WHS and likely the same for other protected areas globally. To address this issue, we developed a new framework to guide monitoring and reporting of IAS in protected areas building on globally accepted standards for IAS assessments, and tested it on seven WHS. The framework requires the collation of information and reporting on pathways, alien species presence, impacts, and management, the estimation of future threats and management needs, assessments of knowledge and gaps, and, using all of this information allows for an overall threat score to be assigned to the protected area. This new framework should help to improve monitoring of IAS in protected areas moving forward.
KW - Biodiversity
KW - Conservation
KW - Global environmental change
KW - Invasive alien species
KW - IUCN
KW - Management
KW - Protected areas
KW - UNESCO
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85089978445&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10531-020-02026-1
DO - 10.1007/s10531-020-02026-1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85089978445
SN - 0960-3115
VL - 29
SP - 3327
EP - 3347
JO - Biodiversity and Conservation
JF - Biodiversity and Conservation
IS - 11-12
ER -