It’s national Invasive Species Week, 24 – 30 May, and iCASP is joining a campaign to raise awareness of why non native species are a problem and how to deal with them to help protect the environment.
Invasive species are one of the top threats to global diversity and cost the British economy over £2 billion a year – so it’s a battle worth fighting.
You can watch this video produced by the Non Native Species Secretariat that explains how to identify them and how everyone can prevent their spread.
iCASP is currently working with local authorities in Leeds and Barnsley, focusing on aquatic non-native species such as Japanese Knotweed, Himilayan Balsam, floating Pennywort and Giant Hogweed.
Our recommended approach is prevention rather than cure as being more cost effective – if the problem isn’t tackled at a local level costs will spiral.
The project has investigated the relationship between human activities, such as building developments, and the spread of INNS.
We are producing resources to highlight need for good biosecurity practice. These include a review of the financial and reputation cost of INNS to organisations, fact sheets which demonstrate how INNS are spreading in the region and best practice biosecurity policies and frameworks.
One of the key early recommendations of this project is the need for biosecurity framework to be built into local authorities tendering and procurement processes.
We are currently looking at how best to embed our recommendations into Yorkshires Local Authorities, designing the process in such a way that it can also be applied to catchments elsewhere, and ultimately reduce the spread of INNS.
Find out more about our project and its outcomes.