Abstract:

Background & Aims: Invasive alien species (IAS) are one of the five main direct driving factors of global biodiversity loss, posing significant negative impacts on the ecosystems and human well-being. Although countries have progressively deepened their understanding of IAS and implemented stricter control measures, the global number of invasive alien species has not been effectively controlled and continues to rise. This article provides a comprehensive review of the development of international policies and measures for controlling invasive alien species, and evaluates the current international progress and control measures in different countries by combining scientific literature and relevant international processes. This article also identifies the global challenges facing the control of invasive alien species and provides recommendations for scientific prevention and control of invasive alien species in China.

Review Results: This paper systematically reviews the evolution of international policies and measures related to IAS management under the frame work of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), organized along three primary themes: First, establishing comprehensive frameworks and partnerships, developing and issuing relevant guidelines, raising awareness among nations while integrating IAS governance into agendas for terrestrial, marine, and coastal biodiversity conservation. Second, regularly formulating global objectives, encouraging countries to incorporate IAS control into their national strategies, programs, and action plans, while assessing the progress, challenges, and gaps in meeting these objectives. Third, addressing thematic issues based on some urgent problems according to the requests from countries or international agencies, by prioritizing urgent and severe IAS problems through targeted initiatives. Despite the conclusion of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, particularly Target 9 on the management of IAS, limited progress has been made globally. Key challenges include: Weaknesses in legislation and policies frameworks, lack of coherence among policy instruments and strategic actions, insufficient public engagement and economic incentives, inadequate mechanisms for information sharing.

Suggestion:To address these issues, the study recommend that invasive alien species control legislation and oversight should be strengthened, coherent policy instruments and cross-scale strategic actions should be developed, whole-of- society approach and resource mobilization should be enhanced, and scientific cooperation and exchange should be improved.

Key words: invasive alien species, Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Convention on Biological Diversity, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services