Natural History Wanderings

Climate News Network reports

At last, a global price on invasive alien species: it runs to billions of dollars and doubles every six years.

French scientists have put a value on the cost of ecosystem destruction by often almost invisible newcomers: the damage invasive alien species do, and the price of containing that damage, has already passed the US$1.28 trillion mark in less than 50 years.

That’s because the annual toll imposed by cats, rats and mice, boll weevils, gipsy moths, African bees, red imported fire ants and other unwelcome migrants has averaged $26.8 billion a year from 1970 to 2017, and has been doubling every six years, and trebling every decade.

Source: Invasive alien species exact huge ecosystem cost | Climate News Network