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283 alien invaders causing a yearly loss of 200b yuan to China

By Qiang Xiaoji (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-06-02 16:22

Invasive alien species are causing enormous economic loss to China and seriously affecting people's lives, China Business Weekly reported Monday, quoting an official from the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).

China is one of the countries most affected by invasive species and so far has recorded more than 280. More than half of the 100 dangerous alien species listed by the World Conservation Union have been found in China, said Wang Jie, biological safety section chief of MEP.

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Wang said that according to a research in 2003, the economic losses caused by invasive alien species amounted to 119.88 billion yuan, accounting for 1.36 percent of the GDP of the year.

Nowadays, the yearly losses caused by those invasive species are as high as 200 billion yuan ($29.29 billion) in China and the situation is set to get worse, said Wang.

According to a World Conservation Union report, the annual global economic loss caused by invasive alien species amounted to over $400 billion.

Invasive species adversely impact upon biodiversity, including decline or elimination of native species－through competition, predation, or transmission of pathogens－and disrupting local ecosystems.

For example, water hyacinth, a fast growing aquatic plant, was introduced to tropical South America to China as flowers and pig feed. When not controlled, it will dramatically impact water flow, block sunlight from reaching native aquatic plants and starve the water of oxygen, often killing living creatures in the lakes, ponds and rivers.

It also creates a prime habitat for mosquitoes. Chemical and mechanical removal is often too expensive and ineffective to deal with water hyacinth.

Yang Hongjun, director of Yunnan Ecology Agriculture Institute, said every year China spends 500 million to 1 billion yuan dealing with water hyacinth; the annual direct economic loss caused by water hyacinth amounts to approximately 10 billion yuan.

Yang said they have turned to biological control agents to deal with water hyacinth and have already achieved some technical progress.

However, the most effective control method remains the prevention of the spread of alien invaders.

Zhang Runzhi, a researcher at the Institute of Zoology of Chinese Academy of Science, said the introduction of invasive alien species includes intentional and unintentional imports.

Intentional imports usually include importing species for breeding, planting and flowering, while unintentional imports refer to imports through aircrafts, land traffic, waterway transportation.

Lacking control of the intentional imports always led to the spread of invasive alien species.

Some specialists of environmental protection say China still imports huge amounts of species while lacking good control methods.

The most effective way to reduce economic losses caused by alien invaders is to control the intentional introduction and prevent the unintentional imports by raising people's awareness, said Wang.