An Ecosystem-Based Approach to Slowing the Synergistic Effects of Invasive Species and Climate Change

Abstract

This article examines newly-discovered scientific synergies between climate change and invasive species from a legal perspective. Specifically, new scientific research shows that invasive plant species are better able to adapt to the earlier onset of spring – a likely consequence of climate change – than are their native counterparts. In turn, invasive species weaken ecosystems’ resistance to climate-related stressors. The legal literature has largely ignored federal law and policy governing invasive species management, even though its impacts are similar to climate change: it is a global problem that has already caused thousands of deaths as well as worldwide economic impacts estimated at over a trillion dollars annually. This article calls attention to this issue by examining the patchwork of federal environmental laws, regulations and policies that currently apply to invasive species management and showing why it is sorely inadequate. The newly-discovered synergies between invasive species and climate change only underscore the need for effective legal regimes to fill gaps in existing law. Legal policymakers can no longer afford to ignore invasive species. Instead, an effective policy response to invasive species should consider the effects of climate change, and vice versa.

Ultimately, this article suggests that policymakers should adopt an ecosystem-based approach to controlling invasive species. Specifically, federal agencies should identify key ecosystems and ecosystem services that the agencies wish to preserve against the impacts of climate change, and concentrate invasive species prevention and control on those same ecosystems. The development of an ecosystem-based approach to invasive species management fits well with existing environmental management techniques, but has never been applied in this context. Effective invasive species management is a relatively low-cost and low-risk strategy for responding to the effects of climate change, no matter how severe those impacts turn out to be.

Keywords: invasive species, climate change, environmental law, natural resources