Invasive Alien Species Report

*Updated on 4 September 2023

The severe global threat posed by invasive alien species is underappreciated, underestimated, and often unacknowledged.

The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species and their Control (known as the “Invasive Alien Species Report”) finds that more than 37,000 alien species have been introduced by many human activities to regions and biomes around the world. It also reveals that alongside dramatic changes to biodiversity and ecosystems, the global economic cost of invasive alien species exceeded $423 billion annually in 2019, with costs having at least quadrupled every decade since 1970.

Invasive alien species are one of the five major direct drivers of biodiversity loss globally, alongside land and sea-use change, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, and pollution. Target 6 of the recently adopted Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is to “eliminate, minimize, reduce and or mitigate the impacts of invasive alien species on biodiversity and ecosystem services”. The IPBES Invasive Alien Species Assessment responds to the need to support decision-makers in understanding the current status and trends of invasive alien species, their impacts, their drivers, management, and options for policy that effectively deal with the challenges they pose. The Report was approved on Saturday in Bonn, Germany, by representatives of the 143 member States of IPBES.

The Invasive Alien Species Assessment:

• Assesses the array of invasive alien species that affect biodiversity and ecosystem services
• Analyzes the extent of the threat posed by such species to various categories of biodiversity and ecosystem services, including impacts on agrobiodiversity and food, human health and livelihood security
• Identifies the major pathways for and drivers of the introduction and spread of such species between and within countries
• Highlights the global status of and trends in the impacts of invasive alien species and associated management interventions by region and subregion, taking into account various knowledge and value systems
• Assesses the effectiveness of current international, national and subnational control measures and associated policy options that could be employed to prevent, eradicate and control invasive alien species, with an emphasis on response options