The economic costs of biological invasions in Brazil: a first assessment

Abstract

Biological invasions are one of the leading causes of global environmental change and their impacts can affect biodiversity, ecosystem services, human health and the economy. Yet, the understanding on the impacts of invasive alien species is still limited and mostly related to alien species outbreaks and losses in agricultural yield, followed by the understanding of the ecological impacts on natural systems. Notably, the economic impacts of biological invasions have rarely been quantified. Brazil has at least 1214 known alien species from which 460 are recognized as invasive alien species. Still, there are no comprehensive estimates of the cost of their impact and management. Here, we aimed at filling this gap by providing a comprehensive estimate of the economic cost of biological invasions in Brazil. In order to quantify these costs for species, ecosystems and human well-being we used the InvaCost database which is the first global compilation of the economic costs of biological invasions. We found that Brazil reportedly spent a minimum of USD 105.53 billions over 35 years (1984–2019), with an average spent of USD 3.02 (± 9.8) billions per year. Furthermore, USD 104.33 billion were due to damages and losses caused by invaders, whereas only USD 1.19 billion were invested in their management (prevention, control or eradication). We also found that recorded costs were unevenly distributed across ecosystems, and socio-economic sectors, and were rarely evaluated and published. We found that the economic costs with losses and damages were substantially greater than those used for prevention, control or eradication of IAS. Since our data show costs reported in Brazil for only 16 invasive alien species, our estimates are likely a conservative minimum of the actual economic costs of biological invasions in Brazil. Taken together, they indicate that invasive alien species are an important cause of economic losses and that Brazil has mostly opted for paying for the damage incurred by biological invasions rather than investing in preventing them from happening.

The economic costs of biological invasions in Central and South America: a first regional assessment

“…The differences amongst the costs found here and other country-level assessments in the region are due to different methodological choices. Adelino et al (2021) found a higher accumulated cost than us for Brazil because they did not remove entries from the original InvaCost dataset (USD 105.5 billion vs. USD 76.8 billion). For the same reason, Duboscq-Carra et al (2021) found an accumulated cost USD 5.5 million higher than us for Argentina (USD 6,907.6 million vs. USD 6,902.1 million).…”

“…In addition, although our study is the first regional assessment in Central and South America and was based on the most upto-date database, we highlight that the costs reported here are a conservative baseline. We did not include cost entries classified as low reliability or reporting expected-only costs in the analysis and there were no published costs for some relevant invasive alien species in the region (e.g., Pterois volitans and Tubastraea coccinea; Adelino et al 2021); furthermore, it is difficult to disentangle costs associated with multiple practices (e.g., restoration; Brancalion et al 2019). Hence, the economic cost of biological invasions in the region is higher and must be evaluated continuously.…”

Economic costs of biological invasions in Ecuador: the importance of the Galapagos Islands

“…Contrary to other countries in the region -whether mega-diverse or not (Heringer et al 2021;Adelino et al 2021;Duboscq-Carra et al 2021), Ecuadorian institutional authorities, at least in the Galapagos Islands, have invested actively in invasive species management actions. One of the reasons is the body of research about the massive impact that invasive species have on the Galapagos resident biota (Jäger et al 2009;Jäger et al 2013;Rivas-Torres and Rivas 2018;Cooke et al 2020), triggering investment to control or eradicate these species.…”

“…Agriculture, for instance, is an important sector that makes up 33.9% of the employment in rural areas of Ecuador (which is higher than the 24% reported in other Andean countries of the region (Martínez Valle 2017). It was also the most impacted activity sector by invasive alien species in Brazil (Adelino et al 2021) and Argentina (Duboscq-Carra et al 2021), while fisheries was ranked first for Mexico (Rico-Sánchez et al 2021). In fact, the scarcity of scientific reports on the economic impacts of invasive species from mainland Ecuador makes it difficult to assess the real cost on most activity sectors.…”

The economic costs of biological invasions around the world

“…For instance, agricultural losses and damage were the main component of reported costs for Africa (Diagne et al 2021b), the Americas (Crystal-Ornelas et al 2021;Heringer et al 2021), and Asia (Kirichenko et al 2021;Liu et al 2021;Watari et al 2021). Human health costs were strongly related to mosquitoes of the genus Aedes and were a main component of reported costs for Brazil (Adelino et al 2021), Central America (Heringer et al 2021) and Singapore (Haubrock et al 2021b). Conversely, economic costs of preventing or mitigating alien species impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services were virtually non-existent, with a few exceptions.…”