Building efective alliances between research and management to better control and mitigate the impacts of an invasive ecosystem engineer: lessons from the study and control of Castor canadensis in the Fuegian Archipelago

CHRISTOPHER B. ANDERSON; NICOLÁS SOTO; JOSÉ L. CABELLO; GUILLERMO MARTINEZ PASTUR; MARÍA VANESSA LENCINAS; PETRA K. WALLEM; DANIEL ANTÚNEZ; ERNESTO F. DAVIS

A Handbook of Global Freshwater Invasive Species

Earthscan Publishing

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2011; p. 343 - 355

While eradication is a desirable goal, in terms of its costs, difficulty and uncertainty, there is a clear need to maintain a critical perspective and to continue evaluating the cost and benefits for a range of possible solutions that integrate the ultimate objective of restoration on the social, economic and ecological levels. Therefore, the establishment of a current dogma of ‘eradication or nothing’ is a potentially disturbing trend to some researchers and managers, as it does not take into account the dynamic nature of research and knowledge or adaptive management from not only the technical perspective, but also the political level for policy development and implementation. This paradigmatic shift, for example, has diverted attention from the original steps taken by SAG with the FONDEMA project, cutting short the three years of experience gained in developing market incentives to mitigate invasive species impacts.