How much is Europe spending on invasive alien species?

Abstract

Over the last 15 years, despite the lack of a specific strategy or a dedicated financial instrument to deal with invasive alien species (IAS), the European Commission (EC) has contributed to financing almost 300 projects addressing this issue, for a total budget exceeding 132 million EUR. Such figures are based on projects funded under two specific EU financial tools: LIFE and the RTD Framework Programmes. The contribution of the two programmes has been characterised by an overall positive trend over the years, in terms of both the number of projects and the budget spent. Such trend can be assumed to reflect an overall increase in both the awareness of the problem among wildlife managers and scientific institutions, and the willingness to pay by the EC institutions and the EU citizens in general. Such data might contribute to the development of a response indicator measuring ‘Trends in invasive alien species in Europe’, useful to assess progress toward the target of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010—as a part of the SEBI 2010 process. The results may also contribute to assess the economic impact of IAS in Europe—in terms of costs for reduction and/or prevention of damages—and to support policy decisions and communication campaigns. Finally, the results are encouraging and support the need for the development and the implementation of a sound EU strategy on IAS, so as to regulate and optimise the administration of the available financial resources—whenever appropriate—on the basis of specific priorities.