Invasive Species Central Questions & Opportunities.

1. Invasive Species Central Questions & Opportunities. Chris Dionigi, Deputy Director National Invasive Species Council 202-354-1876 Chris_Dionigi@ios.doi.gov Gypsy Moth Python

2. National Invasive Species Council • Executive Order 13122: created NISC to coordinate federal agencies and to encourage inter-jurisdictional work on private lands, local, tribal, state’s, and international governments. • NISC: 12 federal agency (Co-chairs: Secretaries of the Interior, Ag, & Commerce • ISAC: 29 representatives Invasive Species Advisory Committee (ISAC). • Coordination Challenge: • ~40 relevant federal laws • ~2.0 $billion in annual federal spending • ~390 federal, state or private programs • ~250 non-profit organizations

3. Invasive Species West Nile Virus “an alien species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.” Emerald Ash Borer Yellow Star Thistle Vector: Mosquitoes Hydrilla Tamarix Didymo (Rock Snot) Nutria Zebra Mussel

4. Invasive Species For some species, their establishment and spread can be halted. Emerald Ash Borer Didymo (Rock Snot) Zebra Mussel Asian Longhorned Beetle

5. EDRR can halting invasions, and costs far less than on-going control measures. However, the period when an invasive population is large enough to be found, but still localized enough to be stopped is brief, and often well before widespread public awareness of the problem. Invasions quickly overwhelm local resources; delays and shortfalls can cause critical opportunities to be lost. EDRR Univ. of Georgia, Center of Invasive Species & Ecosystem Health

6. The 2008-2012 National Invasive Species Management Plan • Directs federal efforts to prevent, control and minimize invasive species and their impacts • Strategic goals that focus federal efforts on invasive species work: • Prevention • Early Detection and Rapid Response • Control and Management • Restoration • Organizational Collaboration

7. The Challenges: • Prevention • New regulations? listing, trade impacts. • Screening new introductions – risk assessments • Early Detection and Rapid Response • Great Idea, but how do you actually do it? • Control and Management • Lack of tools, push back on control methods • Restoration • Are invasives just symptom of bigger problems? Do you really need to restore? • Organizational Collaboration • Maintaining the focus on a difficult set of issues.

8. Current U.S. Invasive Species Too Widely Distributed CONTROL Establishment & Spread can Still be Prevented - EDRR Species primarily of Ag importance Species Primarily of Natural Areas Importance Proposed Stakeholder-Driven Public/Private Partnership Between NISC & NFWF to Protect Wildlife, Fish, Native Plants & Their Habitats From Invasive Species. See Fig. 2. Well-established USDA APHIS Plant & Animal Protection Rapid Scientific Pest Risk Evaluation & Response Processes.

9. Widespread Agreement that: • We must act well-before there is widespread public awareness of an invasive species. • If timely, EDRR is one of our most effective approaches. • Important EDRR opportunities have been lost. • Primary limitation is ready access to support. • Coordination is critical to success.

10. EDRR If There is Widespread Agreement, Then Why Don’t We Have an EDRR Capacity? Funding is certainly an issue. However, even if funding is found actually supporting EDRR involves resolving several key questions.

11. KEY EDRR QUESTIONS 1 Avoid Perverse incentives: How do you build-in incentives for early action so that small populations are dealt with while they are small and less expensive? • Do you increase the percentage of support for actions that are timely? • Do you carefully design proposal evaluation criteria to encourage efforts that are likely to be successful – because in part they caught an infestation early? • How do you avoid the “re-classification” of projects to from control and operations to EDRR just to make them available for EDRR support?

12. KEY EDRR QUESTIONS 2 Geographic Scale?: How do you determine what geographic scale of projects to fund? • A project that cover too large of an area will quickly consume all available funds. • Projects that are too limited in geographic scale may not have a significant positive effect. • Projects must be of regional or national significance, how can that be determined? • Do people come together regionally and identify species that they will commit to not allowing to become established anywhere in the region?

13. KEY EDRR QUESTIONS 3 Temporal Scale?: EDRR needs to begin quickly, but can take years to complete. How do you determine how long to fund work? • If eradication of a localized population is the stated goal of a project, how many years of data indicating “species not present” before it is declared a successful eradication? • If eradication of a localized population is NOT the stated goal of a project, then what is an appropriate goal?

14. KEY EDRR QUESTIONS 4 Capacity Building?: In some cases, infestations may occur where there is little or no existing on-the-ground capacity to conduct EDRR operations. Should a program fund basic capacity building in advance of infestations? • Regional EDRR planning and coordination efforts are critical to effective EDRR implementation, but should an EDRR program fund filling gaps in capacity directly? • Local and State governments currently share resources to deal with incidences such as wildfires, floods, and hurricanes. Can those same mechanisms be used to share resources across a region and build a regional EDRR capacity?

15. KEY EDRR QUESTIONS 5 Public Communications?: A central function within the Incidence Command Structure is public communication. If successful, infestations will be halted and never become a “news lead.” • How do we shift the focus from talking about a particular invasive species at a particular location to one of regional natural resource protection? • How do we communicate with the public about EDRR efforts that are not a “one and done?” While successful, they be undone by additional introductions?