Invasive Alien Species: A New Synthesis (Scope Series): 63 (Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (Scope))

Invasive alien species are among today's most daunting environmental threats, costing billions of dollars in economic damages and wreaking havoc on ecosystems around the world. In 1997, a consortium of scientific organizations including SCOPE, IUCN, and CABI developed the Global Invasive Species Programme (GISP) with the explicit objective of providing new tools for understanding and coping with invasive alien species.

Invasive Alien Species is the final report of GISP's first phase of operation, 1997-2000, in which authorities from more than thirty countries worked to examine invasions as a worldwide environmental hazard. The book brings together the world's leading scientists and researchers involved with invasive alien species to offer a comprehensive summary and synthesis of the current state of knowledge on the subject.

Invasive alien species represent a critical threat to natural ecosystems and native biodiversity, as well as to human economic vitality and health. The knowledge gained to date in understanding and combating invasive alien species can form a useful basis on which to build strategies for controlling or minimizing the effects in the future. Invasive Alien Species is an essential reference for the international community of investigators concerned with biological invasions.

Jeff McNeely served as Chief Scientist of IUCN until retirement in July 2009, and as Senior Science Advisor until March 2012. He has recently worked with the Government of Tanzania on World Heritage issues and the Government of Japan, also on World Heritage issues as well as protected areas and natural hazards and advising on the content of the Asia Parks Congress. He has worked on protected areas for the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and numerous bilateral agencies/NGOs in over 80 countries. His publications comprise over 40 books and 500 scientific and popular papers on various aspects of conservation seeking to link conservation of natural resources to the maintenance of cultural diversity and to economically-sustainable ways of life. He serves on the editorial advisory board of seven biodiversity-related journals.