Extract from the Environmental Audit Committee session on Invasive species - Jun 11

Witnesses

I: Catherine Wensink, Executive Director, UK Overseas Territories Forum, Dr Mark Belchier, Director of Fisheries and Environment, Government of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, Dr Kevin Hughes, British Antarctic Survey, and Jonathan Hall, Head of the UK Overseas Territories, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Catherine Wensink: I would add that these emerging threats are coming up all the time. There has been one recently in the Turks and Caicos Islands of stony coral tissue loss disease. We do not know much about it, but we know it is absolutely devastating to coral reefs. There, it has only come about because they are seeing it happen and looking to see where it has come from. They think it originated in Florida.

I think there can be more sharing of these emerging threats and I know the GB Non-native Species Secretariat has done a really good job of building a network and supplying information. That is something that is really important.

To read the whole transcript, CLICK HERE