Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
L
(a)
(b)
STR
N
R
LEG
INST
G
IMPL
Fig. 8.1
(a) Addressing IAS has to be done within a strategic framework that
integrates: an overall strategy or vision (STR), institutional arrangements
(INST), and legal / regulatory aspects (LEG) with the practical day-to-day
implementation (IMPL). After De Poorter (2006). (b) IAS management
requires action internationally at global (G) and regional (R) levels as well as at
national (N) and local/sub-national (L) levels.
h e above points illustrate the importance of legal instruments (including the
institutional mandates they underpin or create) and strategies, and why addressing
alien invasive species needs to happen at the international level (globally and
regionally), as well as nationally and locally (Fig. 8.1).
A starting point for the legal and institutional approach to addressing biological
invasions is that it is not possible to simply regulate against 'harmful' or 'invasive'
alien species, since the impacts of 'new' alien species on the environment cannot
be known with certainty. Law must therefore, to some degree, cover
all
alien spe-
cies, and include coverage of how to predict and identify invasiveness and how to
set appropriate limits on activities and species that might create invasive problems
now or in the future (Young 2006).
Another important factor to keep in mind is that most activities leading to
the introduction of potential IAS have legitimate economic and social object-
ives (primary production, trade, travel, transport, etc.). Legal instruments will
be required to strike a balance between legitimate socioeconomic activities and
appropriate safeguards for the environment, communities, and public health
(Shine
et al
. 2005). Most internationally agreed legal instruments have developed
independently from each other, in diff erent sectors, in diff erent times and in the
context of diff erent international mandates, so the terminology used in them
refl ects this. Defi nitions vary signifi cantly between diff erent international instru-
ments and this presents quite a challenge to implementation at the national level
