A group of ecologists, in association with the Institute of Jamaica and the Inter-American Biodiversity Network (IABIN) last week met at Kingston's Medallion Hall Hotel to formulate strategies to control the impact of alien invasive species here.
"We need to do much more to protect our biodiversity," Dr Peter Vogel told participants in the one-day symposium. ". we need to control alien invasive species, otherwise we will eventually lose the last of our natural forests. It's a very serious problem."
Vogel raised as an example, the case of wild coffee competing with indigenous plant species in the Blue Mountains and said that very little practical work has been done in Jamaica with regard to alien invasive species.
Last week's symposium was the first National Alien Invasive Species Workshop being held in Jamaica and represented one of the first steps toward preserving biodiversity.
The IABIN hopes to use such fora to convince natural resource managers, researchers and legislators about the benefits of using the network to gather and distribute information.
Established in 1996, the IABIN is an initiative between several governments in the region who recognise the value of co-operation between agencies, researchers and nations to protect biodiversity.
Jamaica uses the Clearing House Mechanism (CHM), the international standard for gathering and distributing information on biodiversity information, and maintains a local network managed and administered by the Institute of Jamaica, through its National History Division.
Alien species are those not native to a specific location, and invasive species are those that out-compete or threaten other species. Usually, humans are responsible for the introduction of these aliens, as they intentionally or unintentionally carry these plants and animals to places where they would not normally be found, sometimes for pest control, as pets or for plant breeding, and sometimes as 'accidental passengers' on ships, planes or on humans themselves.
In Jamaica, many of our familiar flora and fauna are alien species, but not all are invasive or have a negative effect on other species and habitats. Sugar cane, ackee, and the cattle egret, all alien species for instance, have all aided Jamaican agriculture.
Alien invasive species, however, like the small Indian mongoose, which has caused the near-extinction of Jamaica's indigenous snakes, and the coffee berry borer, can create negative and far-reaching effects for agriculturists, conservationists and ordinary consumers.
Presenters at the workshop included senior research officer at the Natural History Division and head of the IABIN Invasive Species Information Network project in Jamaica, Suzanne Davis; as well as UWI MPhil candidate Dayne Buddo, who is currently conducting research on Perria viridis (green mussels), an aquatic mollusc that threatens native plant and animal species in the Kingston Harbour and other marine ecosystems around the island.
The threat of decreasing biodiversity is a worldwide concern, and a United Nations Environmental Programme report released just before the World Summit on Sustainable Development held earlier this month in Johannesburg, South Africa, revealed that approximately 30 per cent of the world's estimated 13 million species will be erased from the earth by the middle of the 21st century.
This extinction would be due in part to the loss of natural habitats through human activities such as agriculture and urbanisation, but would also be due to alien species invasion.

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