Tim Low on Macquarie Island, where responses of pests to climate change are especially obvious.

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Posted 25 February 2009

Welcome to the first edition of Double Trouble, part of the Invasive Species Council’s work raising awareness about the dangers posed by weeds and pest animals to Australia’s natural environment under climate change.

While it’s obvious that climate change will create a world of many losers, there will be winners as well. Native species killed or stressed by climate change will all too often be replaced by weeds and feral animals.

Floods, storms, cyclones, fires and droughts predicted by climate experts will speed up invasion. Extreme events benefit weeds by stressing or destroying competing native plants, and often by delivering a pulse of nutrients.

In the race to understand climate change, very few biologists or policy makers are addressing the pest threat. The Invasive Species Council is the main conservation NGO in Australia highlighting the links between invasive species and climate change.

Double Trouble will be a regular ebulletin put out by the Invasive Species Council highlighting current threats and future dangers posed by invasive species to Australia’s natural environment in a warmer, weedier world.

Please take the time to read through the stories, send us feedback, and just as importantly, forward to friends and colleagues interested in protecting our native plants and animals from future threats.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Low, Invasive Species Council Project Officer

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