NECIS factsheet on Screening for Invasive Species

Background on the need for Annex-based reforms.

Invasive species are a relentless problem—there will always be more species that can arrive on our shores and whose impact on our economy and environment is difficult to predict. However, there are some dangerous species whose establishment we know would disrupt natural ecosystems and cause tremendous damage to resource-dependent economies like agriculture, forestry, and fishing. The ten species described below are ones we definitely do not want and are prime examples of why we must increase efforts to prevent new introductions. We must take immediate precautions now to insure that in 10 years we can report the good news that these looming arrivals, and many others like them, have been kept at bay.

Testimony of the National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Hearing on the Importation of Exotic Species and the Impact on Public Health and Safety. Invasions by exotic plants, animals, and pathogens into non-native environments pose one of the most significant, but least addressed, threats to human health, agriculture and our natural ecosystems. Monkey pox, SARS and West Nile virus are the new buzzwords of public health, as communicable diseases increasingly leap hosts from animals to humans. In the United States, in 2002 alone, West Nile virus claimed more than 60 lives among constituencies represented by this committee and sickened more than a 1,000 people. Deliberate animal imports (legal or illegal) are thought to be one of the most likely ways that WNV got to New York City in 1999.

Testimony of The National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species before Joint Oversight Hearing, House Committee on Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans and Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands.

Invaders are irreparably destroying the environment and our natural heritage, costing an estimated, conservative $138 billion dollars annually, and eroding the quality of life for citizens across the country. Preventing and controlling the spread of aquatic invasive species is not merely an environmental protection issue; aquatic invasive species must be treated as an immediate priority if the United States is to maintain the multitude of benefits its waters provide its citizens, including benefits that most individuals assume as rights, such as clean drinking water, fishing resources and recreational access.

The member organizations of the National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species (NECIS) urge you to co-sponsor the National Aquatic Invasive Species Act (NAISA), S. 770. NAISA will amend and improve the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act of 1990.

U.S. efforts to stop the introduction of invasive species have not fully utilized existing authorities and have largely focused on creating a short list of known harmful species to regulate. This approach has not adequately protected our lands, waters and biological diversity. By waiting until species’ potential to damage our ecosystems and economy manifest themselves, we miss the most cost effective – and in some instances the only – window of opportunity to prevent their establishment or eradicate them.

A letter to Secretary Ken Salazar of the U.S. Department of the Interior expressing the need for improved legislation to screen animal and plant imports on their risk to the environment.

Letter to the Attorney Generals of Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, strongly encouraging them to take legal action to stop the invasion of Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes by Asian carp from the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC) and Cal-Sag Channel. The letter urges them to consider joining with Michigan, should that state take legal action, and to take independent actions to address this Great Lakes emergency.

Preliminary comments and recommendations on governance matters. Increasingly, those involved in Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) matters assert that one of the prime reasons for our failure to achieve more under the GLWQA is the flawed nature and functioning of government institutions and processes around the Agreement.