Biological invasions in World Heritage Sites: current status and a proposed monitoring and reporting framework
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Biological invasions in World Heritage Sites: current status and a proposed monitoring and reporting framework Ross T. Shackleton1,2 • Bastian Bertzky3 • Louisa E. Wood4 • Nancy Bunbury5,6 • Heinke Ja¨ger7 • Remco van Merm8 • Christian Sevilla9 • Kevin Smith10 • John R. U. Wilson1,11 • Arne B. R. Witt12 • David M. Richardson1 Received: 24 July 2019 / Revised: 11 June 2020 / Accepted: 30 July 2020 Ó The Author(s) 2020
Abstract UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) are areas of outstanding universal value and conservation importance. They are, however, threatened by a variety of global change drivers, including biological invasions. We assessed the current status of biological invasions and their management in 241 natural and mixed WHS globally by reviewing documents collated by UNESCO and IUCN. We found that reports on the status of biological invasions in WHS were often irregular or inconsistent. Therefore, while some reports were very informative, they were hard to compare because no systematic method of reporting was followed. Our review revealed that almost 300 different invasive alien species (IAS) were considered as a threat to just over half of all WHS. Information on IAS management undertaken in WHS was available for fewer than half of the sites that listed IAS as a threat. There is clearly a need for an improved monitoring and reporting system for biological invasions in WHS and likely the same for other protected areas globally. To address this issue, we developed a new framework to guide monitoring and reporting of IAS in protected areas building on globally accepted standards for IAS assessments, and tested it on seven WHS. The framework requires the collation of information and reporting on pathways, alien species presence, impacts, and management, the estimation of future threats and management needs, assessments of knowledge and gaps, and, using all of this information allows for an overall threat score to be assigned to the protected area. This new framework should help to improve monitoring of IAS in protected areas moving forward. Keywords Biodiversity Conservation Global environmental change Invasive alien species IUCN Management Protected areas UNESCO
Communicated by Dirk Sven Schmeller. This article belongs to the Topical Collection: Invasive species. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-02002026-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. & Ross T. Shackleton [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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Biodiversity and Conservation
Introduction Key drivers of global change are increasingly threatening the environment and areas with high natural and cultural value (Vitousek et al. 1997; Chape et al. 2005; Brook et al. 2008; Butchart et al. 2010; Watson et al. 2014), making the effective management of over 230,000 protected areas (PAs) globally a critical endeavour (UNEP-WCMC
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