| Increased worldwide trade and travel has accelerated the number of alien invasive organisms. Plants and (animals including insects and microbes) have invaded many countries. Such alien species not only cause direct damage to crops, but also result in imbalances in indigenous ecosystems. The control of invasive species is urgently required, but often causes environmental problems and increases production costs due to the additional use of various chemicals.
Alien invasive species cause many problems in the Asian-Pacific region. In order to establish countermeasures to prevent their spread and minimize their economic impact, it is necessary to examine the expansion of serious invasive species and to predict their population dynamics in the Asian-Pacific region. For this purpose, it is very important to discuss the current situation of alien invasive species and their environmental impact/risk, and to develop a database of recent information on invasive species so Asian-Pacific countries can share information by Internet.
In this international seminar, held jointly by the National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences (NIAES) and the Food and Fertilizer Technology Center for the Asian-Pacific Region (FFTC), presentations and discussion concerned with the alien invasive species in the Asian-Pacific region will address the following issues.
1. Problems caused by alien invasive species, including a list of such species from each country.
2. Environmental impact/risk assessment of invasive species in agro-ecosystems.
3. Molecular and ecological analysis to study the process of expansion by invasive species.
4. Theory and practice for the prevention of alien invasive species.
5. Structure of the database of alien invasive species.
|
