Developing Pan-European response to aquatic Invasive species

EuroMarine Foresight Workshops (FSW) will organise workshops with an innovative, “horizon scanning” approach to their topic and will target a scientific publication as an intended outcome. This foresight workshop will contribute to the Mission “Restore our Ocean & Waters” objectives by addressing the main challenges the Mission tackles such as biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, climate change and pollution. More specifically, the “Mitigate Invasions” workshop will assemble to address the challenges of aquatic Invasive Alien Species (IAS). There will be at least three working groups at the “Mitigate Invasion” workshop: 1) data collection and modelling 2) current and possible eradication actions and 3) current and possible decision-making models. Three task force groups will be preparing a positioning paper on Invasive alien species. This workshop will be organized around the following key objectives:
1. Understand how to minimize establishment of aquatic IAS accidentally introduced in the EU environment.
2. Discuss current and potential early warning systems that can be used to directly inform relevant stakeholders.
3. Understand how to prevent the introduction of aquatic IAS effectively or to better manage established ones.
4. Discuss how to improve public awareness, literacy, and engagement in aquatic IAS monitoring and management.
5. Screen methods and action to reduce pressure on species on the Red List threatened by aquatic IAS.
There are 2 main outcomes of the workshop, those being:
1. Utilising the EuroMarine network and scouting for experts outside the network to provide a list of available expertise in the EU to build a strong and innovative IAS working group.
2. Defining several working groups (at least one per objective) to submit a perspective letter to open access sources such as the Open Research Europe platform.
This workshop is contributing to the objective 1 of the Mission Ocean Protect and restore marine and freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity as it addresses aquatic biodiversity and treats through the IAS. The two enablers are equally addressed through the discussions on the improvement of early warning systems but also the public awareness, literacy, and engagement.