In this paper, we take the economic benefits of invasive species management to be equal to the avoided costs of damages from invasives, were control not to be implemented. When control efforts are unsuccessful, and/or where the damages associated with the invasion are low relative to the costs of control, then it may be socially desirable to abandon control measures and instead manage the resulting damage (Rolfe & Windle, 2014). Moreover, it has been argued that the introduction of some non-native species provides ecological benefits, for example in terms of providing shelter and food resources for native species (Schlaepfer, Sax, & Olden, 2011). However, control often incurs high costs (Martins et al., 2006), and may be met with social opposition (Sheremet, Healey, Quine, & Hanley, 2017), particularly where invasive species have acquired cultural values (Roberts, Cresswell, & Hanley, 2018). Due to the complex nature of ecosystems it is likely that we do not yet understand their full impacts.įrom a number of perspectives, controlling invasive species is becoming increasingly important for society. Invasive species damage food production (Engeman et al., 2010) and can act as disease vectors (Medlock & Leach, 2015). Our understanding of the effects of invasive species is greatest for those that have impacts on agriculture and forestry (Vilà et al., 2010).However, the potential consequences of invasive species are wide ranging across ecosystems (Pejchar & Mooney, 2009). We also discuss some of the problems of applying economic valuation approaches to invasives.
In this paper, we outline the approaches that economists take to measuring the costs of invasive species, including both commercially valued losses and “non-market” effects, while noting that economic benefits arise from non-native species in many instances. These negative impacts have been increasingly recognized in both the ecological and economic literatures as awareness of the impacts of invasive species grows, and as globalization increases the pathways and speed of invasions (Seebens et al., 2018 Smith et al., 2018). Invasive species are those introduced to a novel environment with negative ecological, economic or social impacts (Mooney, 2001).
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