Download Present-day Invasive Species Management

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Finding the Balance: Market-Based Approaches to Invasive
Species Management
Nick Ballou
April 6, 2016
EVST 4650 Senior Colloquium
Invasive Red Lionfish (Pterois volitans) in Florida
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Table of Contents
Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 3
Summary of Recommendations ................................................................................................. 4
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 4
History of the Field .................................................................................................................... 6
Present-day Invasive Species Management ............................................................................... 7
Future of the Field ...................................................................................................................... 9
Implementation of Recommendations ..................................................................................... 10
Works Cited.............................................................................................................................. 12
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Abstract
More than 50,000 non-native plant and animal species currently live in the United
States (Margolis, 2005, p. 308). An enormous number of these have confirmed detrimental
effects, whether that be in the context of biodiversity and competition against endemic
species, as a hindrance to human economic activities, as a health risk, or an assortment of
other potential consequences. On the current 958 species protected by the Endangered Species
Act, 400 of them face competition from non-native invasive species (Dobson, 2013, p. 65).
The problem is clear: species brought over from one region or part of the world to
another may have adaptations that allow them near-unrestricted growth in the new ecosystem.
Lack of predators, more abundant food supply, and other eased environmental restrictions
favor the new species at the expense of the “natural” ecological state. The examples are
endless; the Burmese pythons are some of Florida’s biggest predators, the light brown apple
moth has eaten quickly away at various crops in California (particularly organic ones), and
Zebra mussels clog the intake valves for various urban water supplies throughout the Great
Lakes.
The aggregated impact is estimated to have cost the U.S. $127 billion in 2010, a
number which has been steadily growing each year and which also does not include potential
human disease costs (Corn, 2013, p. 2). Despite the enormity of the issue, the policies around
the issue have long lagged behind the science. Current invasive species management is both
less effective and less financially efficient than it could be.
In the following discussion, market-based strategies and their benefits are compared to
historical and present-day non-native organism regulation. Pigouvian taxes, tradeable risk
permits, and performance bonds are also underutilized options with the potential to capture
the invasive species-related economic externalities. A number of useful suggestions are made
and contextualized, with the goal of advising policy-makers and citizens as to all their
possible options in combatting this extraordinarily important problem.
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Summary of Recommendations
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Increase prevalence of and funding for city, state, and regional invasive species
boards
Revise invasive species blacklist strategies
Implement market-based approaches one species at a time
Use raised funds to promote research on non-native species interaction
Introduction
The Asian Longhorned Beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) threatens more than 30%
of urban trees throughout the entire United States (Porter, 2010, p. 3). Burmese Python
(Python bivittatus) number more than 30,000 in the Everglades alone and remain at the very
top of the food web with little to no competition for resources (Corn, 2013, p. 1). The Black
Rat (Rattus rattus) has inhabited and spread disease to all corners of the earth for the better
part of two millennia.
These examples all have one thing in common: they are species that, through human
activity1, were brought from their native habitat to a new one in which environmental
pressures are significantly lower than those to which they are adapted. They are invasive
species—those non-native organisms which cause harm to the environment, economy, or
public health in their new region. Lack of predators, more abundant food supply, and other
eased environmental restrictions favor the new species at the expense of ecological balance.
There are invasive species on every continent in the world, in every state in the U.S., and in
every form from viruses to land mammals and every plant and animal in between.
Though very difficult to quantify, a highly involved study by researchers at Cornell
University estimates aggregate economic costs from selected invasive species2 at $127 billion
annually in the United States, excluding costs for human health impacts (Pimental, 2005, p.
273). These included economic costs include direct damage, loss to property values, control
costs, agricultural or natural resource productivity or output loss, and dozens of other sources
of monetary damages. Studies by Cook (2007) and Leung et al. (2002) corroborate the large
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Invasive species need not necessarily be introduced by humans, but there are currently no
confirmed examples of an invasive species invading through natural pathways. Potential nonhuman introduction could occur with large-scale geological shift, a natural disaster, or
extraterrestrial life, but has not occurred thus far
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The non-native species ignored by the study were those either a) under human
domestication, b) non-native but with no demonstrable negative effects, nor c) non-native
species introduced with positive benefits to the environment (cereal rye [Secale cereale], for
example, is wild and non-native, but desirable in the Midwest United States)
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and growing number of over $100 billion in total yearly impact—in short, the data has been
consistently dire since the 1990s, which was the beginning of when the science of the field
began to rapidly progress.
The science demonstrates that the consequence is more than just economic damages,
but ecological damages as well. The problem of invasive species becomes even more grave
with the knowledge that they pose the second-largest threat to U.S. biodiversity nationwide,
behind only the habitat loss and degradation caused by development and pollution (Beck,
2008, p. 416).
The magnitude of the issue is clear and well-documented, and as a result, it is in the
best interest of all parties to legislate effective means of control. Everyone from bright greens
to the most diehard capitalist has an incentive to manage non-native species control correctly.
By doing so, small costs to society today can prevent enormous ones in the future, and the
critical biodiversity of our nation and of our planet can be adequately protected.
The present legislation leaves a lot to be desired. Fortunately, there is another option:
market-based solutions have been shown to be effective if properly legislated (Richards,
2010).
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History of the Field
In order to understand how the future of invasive species management could look, it is
necessary to look at the history of the politics surrounding the issue. Invasive species
management began at the very end of the 19th century, in the United States before anywhere
else and long before significant international environmental management existed.
The first bill addressing non-native species impact is the Lacey Act of 1900. In the
Lacey Act, “injurious species provision” is criminally codified, and the Secretaries of the
Interior and of the Treasury are given control over which species are allowed to be imported
and exported as well as transported between states. The Lacey Act was initially implemented
as a whitelist policy, a type of single species control. Single species control is the first and
oldest of two basic regulatory approaches to invasive species control; the other is known as
the pathways approach.
Under the single species approach, the Lacey Act would turn out to be an exception—
most commonly, species are placed on a blacklist, at which point their means of transport are
identified and regulated. The Lacey Act, on the other hand, utilized a whitelist policy. Under
either strategy, shipments are required to declare any plant or animal life being transported. In
a blacklist policy, any species on the list is denied or even quarantined if necessary. However,
getting on one of the blacklists can be difficult, because demonstrating harm by a non-native
species is arduous and often only possible long after the organism has been reproducing
rapidly and inflicting damage in the non-native region.
The whitelist policy forbids the transport of any species not found on the list. In this
way, whitelist policy is much more cautious and therefore safer; as a result, it is also harder to
implement and can put unnecessary pressure on firms. Under ideal circumstances, a whitelist
would be perhaps the most effective form of control, but the reality—in which many species
are unidentified and their means of transport either unknown or unregulated—makes a
foolproof whitelist impossible.
It is important to note here that the Lacey Act was originally fairly limited in scope; it
endeavored to prevent interstate wild bird transport to sell game, and opened a few other
known injurious species categories like mollusks and fish. But many varieties of animals and
almost all plants continued to be completely unmonitored, leading to situations like the
current water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) explosions across southern Louisiana and the
surrounding areas, which have been choking out rivers, killing fish, and hindering shipping
for the better part of a century after its horticultural introduction from Southeast Asia.
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In 1949, the first major amendments to the Lacey Act caused it to be more broadly
based on blacklist policy instead of the whitelist strategy of the past. This would continue to
be the legislative standard until the Clinton Administration of the 1990s. Executive Order
13112 of 1999 fundamentally changed America’s strategy on non-native species
management, establishing the National Invasive Species Council (NISC) with members from
more than thirty-five federal agencies.
The critical difference in the establishment of the NISC was the switch toward
emphasis of the pathways approach—the alternative to single-species management that seeks
to identify all major sources of species transport and sterilize them or otherwise prevent
plants, animals, and microorganisms from being undesirably transported. To this end, the
NISC works hand in hand with the Invasive Species Advisory Committee (ISAC) to take
information from scientists, state and local representatives, and stakeholders and apply it
effectively.
The partnership between the federal and state governments is a positive one; no
strategy can be effective without utilizing resources from both areas. The downside, however,
is that the regulatory framework has ended up being something of a loose patchwork between
those two approaches, whereby some species are regulated twice and others not at all.
Present-day Invasive Species Management
The patchwork prevention continues to this day. The National Invasive Species
Management Plan, as implemented in Executive Order 13112, offers a framework for
invasive species management, but this plan has only been updated once since its 1999
inception. The management plan is ambitious and promising, but has not yet lived up to its
anticipated efficacy.
Currently,
international pathways
prevention falls generally
under the NISC’s watch,
and in this realm there has
been some level of success.
A number of successful
strategies have been
nationally implemented
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under their management: universal ballast water chlorination, wood product sterilization, and
various other industrial treatments are all in effect and were designed to limit unplanned plant,
animal, or microbial invasion. These industry-wide NISC requirements take a significant
pressure off each state by tightening the scope of what state-led ISACs need to accomplish.
While the NISC has made significant progress and effectively managed some of the
most important non-native pathways to introduction (ballast water is the single largest
contributor to aquatic invasive species worldwide), some other areas are unfortunately
lacking. Beyond the largely easily-identifiable and nationally-implementable pathways
regulation, the NISC is too small to offer much more than guidance about how to manage
particularly dangerous single species in each state. Single-species invasive species
management in the states remains largely underfunded and under-prioritized.
One major way in which invasive species costs are shifted onto the taxpayer without
their knowledge is in human health effects. Invasive species have a multitude of direct and
indirect effects on human health which are estimated to cost the U.S. at least $20 billion
annually. This occurs in four major categories (Corn 2013):
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

By being itself a pathogen
o Ex. West Nile Virus, brought to North America from Africa by an infected bird
or mosquito
By being a vector for either a native or non-native pathogen
o Ex. Human Monocytotropic Ehrlichiosis (HME) is carried and spread by the
lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum) in 10-fold increased numbers after
the introduction of the invasive weed Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii)
(Hulme 2009, p. 12).
By changing the ecosystem in ways that favor the outbreak of a pathogen
o Ex. The zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) promotes annual toxic bluegreen algal blooms in the Great Lakes
By increasing human exposure to hazards
o Ex. The non-native termite Coptotermes formosanus, known as the “Super
Termite” weakens wooden structures all across the U.S. and the world such as
boats and high-rise buildings, leading in extreme cases to collapse
The U.S. has given states a hefty portion of the responsibility to manage non-native
species. A core issue with this policy, however, is that every continental state is either aided
by the strength or hindered by weakness of its neighbors’ laws. The state-level approach
allows much more attention to specific organisms in regional ecosystems, but loses its
efficacy without a broadly-developed federal system in the background.
The biggest pitfalls of the current invasive species management landscape include its
highly reactive, not proactive, nature, its lack of sufficient federal funding, and its lack of
fund generation. The system generates effectively no money, requiring taxpayer dollars to
continue the regulation. Not only does this make invasive species regulation inefficient and
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expensive, it also turns citizens against the issue: those who are not familiar with the science
of invasive species see only the governmental roadblock and economic losses associated with
regulation.
Future of the Field
Clearly, the United States’ strategy needs to change, and there is one major step
forward waiting to be taken: Market-based approaches are a highly untapped resource in
invasive species management. A number of variations are possible, all of which with
confirmed success on small scales and very high potential efficiency. Knowler and Barbier
(2005) propose a system of Pigouvian taxes, which can capture the externalities of invasive
species and may achieve the optimal balance between controlling damage and encouraging
the diversity benefits that follow from importing non-native species. Constanza and Perrins
(1990) suggest a system of performance bonds and associated financial penalties for firms
who failed to meet environmental standards. Horan and Lupi’s 2005 essay on tradeable
invasive species risk permits provides the most unadulterated market-based strategy,
recommending that a market be created for permits associated with any non-native species
introduction.
These strategies all have much in common. By one way or another, they create a
system of environmental responsibility for any firms who put the nearby ecosystem at risk
with their business activities, and raise funds from those risk-taking businesses. In the end, the
best strategy will always be dependent on the region, the particular non-native species or
species pathway, and the local governmental stance, but it is in everyone’s best interest to
have the greatest possible range of effective options at hand.
The other aspect in common lies in the ability to generate revenue, something the
current system lacks entirely. The money raised from Pigouvian taxes, tradeable permits, or
even the performance bonds all represent a better long-term future in invasive species
management, because the money can be used within the field to better study, identify, and
track non-native species interaction. Research funding is often difficult to support, but this
system would take it much closer to the self-sustaining ideal.
Determining the dollar value on each of these programs is difficult, but the science of
the field is now making previously-impossible tasks manageable. Biostatisticians are able to
calculate with increasing accuracy the likelihood of a stochastic non-native species emission,
and the subsequent likelihood of a species taking up residence and harming the local
environment (Richards 2010, p. 353). These estimates can be used to put a value on the risk of
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non-native species import, and efficiently capture that risk in the existing market (Cook 2007,
p. 1833). For example, horticultural imports to Hawaii by boat may have a .1% chance per
1000 pounds of cargo to introduce a new species—this a stochastic event; either it happens or
it does not. One risk permit allows for that 1000 pounds to be shipped into the state. Now,
algae biofuel import and cultivation is an industry with a known high danger of non-native
species emission. The biostatistician may calculate a .1% chance per 100 gallons of fuel
produced, a higher rate than the horticultural imports, and this would also be worth a permit.
Another new tool available to scientists are biodiversity modules, which can be set up
remotely and monitored over time for changes to the flora, fauna, and microbial life in the
area. Monitoring species and pathways closely remains especially important, as that gives the
best chance of early detection, and subsequently the best chance of corrective action. When
the invasive species is identified and caught early, a variety of techniques are available. From
artificial pheromones released to decrease sexual attraction in fish, introduction of sterilized
males into insect community, to simple mammalian catch and kill strategies, each situation
must be handled with the appropriate technique.
When no market-based approach is possible and the biostatistical data is not strong
enough, Barbier et al. suggest a licensure policy, which would require members of the
horticultural industry to provide proof of training and oversight before being allowed to
import plant species. A licensure strategy has the benefit of being simple and easy to
implement, but has the trade-off that any fund generation would be sunk largely into the
regulatory costs thereof, and the disadvantage that only certain industries (those with
intentional and knowledgeable non-native species import) can be included. Nonetheless,
licensure policy offers yet another option to round out the possibilities.
Implementation of Recommendations
Moving toward these new strategies will be a slow process. The first step will be to
increase the availability of resources to the city, state, and regional invasive species boards.
These boards are short on scientists, and even shorter on funding.
With time and personnel, the invasive species boards can begin to work their way
through the current blacklists. From these lists, some species will not be manageable with a
market-based approach, and others will stand out as viable options due to their particular
pathways.
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A market-based approach will be best introduced slowly, one species at a time. This
system works most effectively with risk permits, as a well-implemented permit system will be
fully functional for any number of industries; when a new expansion is proposed, the statistics
need only be compared to the current permits and weighted accordingly. Over time, the dollar
values and weights of these permits will change to better reflect the information on the
likelihood of a given species emission, residency, and ecological harm.
From here, the system is cyclical. Generated funds will be allocated for invasive
species research. The more scientific data available, the more accurate the tax/permit value.
Market-based approaches will not be perfectly efficient in their initial iterations; instead, they
will set up a foundation for a long-term future of invasive species prevention and control that
will save the U.S. billions and provide a structural framework for worldwide invasive species
policy.
As Leung et al. so eloquently wrote in 2002, invasive species can be treated with “an
ounce of prevention or a pound of cure.” We find ourselves currently at a turning point, and
foresight now can save tons of economic headaches in the future. The more individuals get
involved, the more likely that this issue will rise up the political priority list—to that end,
research and community education remain critical to the strategy. Readers are encouraged to
continue to stay informed and share ideas with others, and stay optimistic about the future of
invasive species management: we have the tools to minimize, and perhaps someday even fully
solve, this crucial problem.
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Works Cited
Barbier, E. B. (2001). A Note on the Economics of Biological Invasions. Ecological
Economics, 39(2), 197-202.
Beck, K. G., Zimmerman, K., Schardt, J. D., Stone, J., Lukens, R. R., Reichard, S., and
Thompson, J. P. (2008). Invasive Species Defined in a Policy Context:
Recommendations from the Federal Invasive Species Advisory Committee.
Invasive Plant Science and Management, 1(4), 414-421.
Cook, D. C., Thomas, M. B., Cunningham, S. A., Anderson, D. L., & De Barro, P. J. (2007).
Predicting the Economic Impact of an Invasive Species on an Ecosystem
Eervice. Ecological Applications, 17(6), 1832-1840.
Corn, M. Lynne. (2013, October). Invasive Species: Major Laws and the Role of Selected
Federal Agencies (CRS Report No. R43258). Retrieved from Congressional
Research Service website: http://nationalaglawcenter.org/wpcontent/uploads/assets/crs/R43258.pdf
Dobson, A., Barker, K., & Taylor, S. L. (2013). Biosecurity: The Socio-Politics of Invasive
Species and Infectious Diseases. New York, NY: Routledge.
Horan, R. D., & Lupi, F. (2005). Tradeable Risk Permits to Prevent Future Introductions of
Invasive Alien Species into the Great Lakes. Ecological Economics, 52(3),
289-304. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2004.06.018
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Leung, B., Lodge, D. M., Finnoff, D., Shogren, J. F., Lewis, M. A., & Lamberti, G. (2002).
An Ounce of Prevention or a Pound of Cure: Bioeconomic Risk Analysis of
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Margolis, M., Shogren, J. F., & Fischer, C. (2005). How Trade Politics Affect Invasive
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Porter, R. D., Graham, S., & Fishman, A. (2010). Status and Trends in State Invasive Species
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Richards, T. J., Ellsworth, P., Tronstad, R., & Naranjo, S. (2010). Market-Based Instruments
for the Optimal Control of Invasive Insect Species: B. Tabaci in
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Westphal, M. I., Browne, M., Mackinnon, K., & Noble, I. (2007). The Link Between
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