The importance of a
summit like this is two-fold:
First, it surfaces issues for debate
and discussion, captures the state of
the science for how issues are being
tackled today, and begins to map
out a game plan for future endeavors. But,
perhaps an equally important outcome of
these summits is the formation of formal and informal
networks – people who can work collaboratively on
research or communication to tackle the challenge.
"One of the first summits that ESA hosted under the
GCAFE banner was on the topic of the Aedes aegypti
mosquito – the insect that carries the Zika virus –
which we held in Brazil in March 2016," says
David Gammel, executive director of ESA. "Years later, many
collaborations which were established at our summit continue
to bear fruit."
The challenge
Invasive species are an enormous economic burden, and little
is definite about the scope and scale of the problem other than
to say … it is a huge problem. Control costs for all invasive pests
are estimated to be over $2.5 billion annually, and losses to
crops, lawns, and forests total at least $18 billion annually.
4
There are thousands of invasive pests–including plants,
insects, fish, fungus, bacteria–that cause damage of some kind.
One example, the emerald
ash borer, or EAB (Agrilus
planipennis), is a wood-boring
beetle that is responsible for the death
of tens of millions of native ash trees in
the U.S. The fight against EAB helped lead
countries to come together and launch the
International Standards For Phytosanitary
Measures No. 15 (ISPM15), an International
Phytosanitary Measure developed by the
International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) that
directly addresses the need to treat wood materials
used to ship products between countries. ISPM15
has been successful at largely reducing or stopping
wood pest introductions. While there have been some regional
incursions and pest detections, there has been no new wide-
scale establishment of wood-boring invasive species attributable
to wood packaging materials since the adoption of ISPM15.
However, more can always be done.
While wood packaging is not the only pathway through
which invasive insect pests are introduced, it has been identified
as a source of some incursions and the NWPCA has been doing
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iStockphoto/Sylverarts
1 https://entomologychallenges.org/vancouver2018/.
2 https://entomologychallenges.org/2019/02/07/the-path-forward-on-invasive-
arthropods-collaboration-innovation-and-more/
3 http://palletcentral.uberflip.com/i/1141207-may-june-2019/27?m4=
4 http://www.entsoc.org/sites/default/files/files/EntSocAmerica_PolicyStatement_
InvasiveSpecies.pdf
