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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Fort Pierce, Florida » U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory » Subtropical Insects and Horticulture Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #222636
Title: Managing the invasive species risk

Author
item OSBORNE, LANCE - UNIV. OF FL/IFAS/MREC
item CHAMBERLIN, JOE - VALENT USA CORPORATION
item McKenzie, Cindy

Submitted to: Entomological Society of America Regional Meetings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/18/2008
Publication Date: 3/2/2008
Citation: Osborne, L., Chamberlin, J., McKenzie, C.L. 2008. Managing the invasive species risk [abstract]. Southeastern Branch meeting of the Entomological Society of America. March 2-5, Jacksonville, Florida

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Florida, California and Hawaii are on the front lines when it comes to the war with invasive species. One study documented the Florida invasion at more than one new arthropod species becoming established in the state each month with California estimated to be one every other month. This does not mean a pest was just detected in someone’s baggage or on produce from another country, but that the species is living and breeding in the state. Not all of the insects, mites or spiders become pests but many do and influence our daily lives. We’ve struggled for months in an effort to find a rational scaffold that would help develop a framework to organize our thoughts on this very complex topic. We can think of IPM and the threat of invasive species by using a framework developed for the discipline of Risk Management. Wikipedia defines Risk management as “the human activity which integrates recognition of risk, risk assessment, developing strategies to manage it, and mitigation of risk using managerial resources.” The objective of Risk Management is to add maximum sustainable value to all the activities of an organization. If we tweak the definition and its objective we get the conceptual structure we were looking for and a new definition for IPM: IPM is an activity which integrates recognition of risk, risk assessment, developing strategies to manage it, and mitigation of risk using all available tools and resources with the objective of obtaining the maximum sustainable value from all the activities of the agricultural enterprise. In this talk we will briefly discuss how this framework fits our response to a few recent invaders.