Assessment to support continued development of the EU Strategy to combat invasive alien species Final Report

Abstract

Invasive alien species (IAS) are recognised as one of the five pressures directly driving biodiversity loss. The other four (habitat change, overexploitation, pollution and climate change) are already addressed by EU policies. Together with climate change, IAS are considered one of the most difficult biodiversity threats to reverse to normality. Some of Europes most threatened species are affected by IAS: of the 174 European species listed as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List, 65 are in danger because of introduced species.