The Status of Biological Invasions and their Management in South Africa in 2019 [SECOND ORDER DRAFT]

The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), in collaboration with the Centre for Invasion Biology (CIB) at Stellenbosch University, is currently in the process of compiling the second National Status Report on Biological Invasions in South Africa. This report has to be produced by October 2020, as required by regulations under the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (Act 10 of 2004).

This is a “second-order draft”. It represents a version that is expected to be substantially similar to the final report and has been put together in part to address the comments raised during the review of the first-order draft. However, some of the estimates of indicator values will change as a result of ongoing analysis. Notes are added to the text to indicate where additional analyses are pending.

We are inviting you, as either a member of our Research and Advisory Committee (RAC) or as an external reviewer, to submit comments, corrections, and queries on this the second-order draft of South Africa’s second national status report on biological invasions. We have prepared a standard form for commenting that you can fill in if you wish (see below), but if you would prefer to send in your inputs in your own format, please indicate the page and line numbers to which your comment refers.  The first report was comprehensive, this report is an update (see the supplementary material for a plan on when the next comprehensive report will be produced). Many of the technical details (and data on which the report is based like the list of alien species) are available in the supplementary appendices. Please also consider commenting on these. If you are in a position to provide additional information, we would be very grateful, and will aim to ensure all contributors are appropriately acknowledged. If you do not wish to be named, please let us know.  This round of commenting is specifically for the RAC and selected expert reviewers, but if you know of people who have data or could check some of the facts, please let us know. We will capture all comments received during this review period and our responses to them in a database that will be available on request once the report has been released.

Comments to be sent to:  Monica Klaas (M.Klaas@sanbi.org.za)
By: Monday 25 May 2020
Form for commenting:  Appendix 7
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tz-woFbCy_urhc5wF7fKV_xJjx_OXQwl

Thank you in advance for your comments, we appreciate you taking the time to engage with us.

Yours sincerely,

 Dr Tsungai Zengeya (on behalf of the second status report drafting team)
Kirstenbosch, May 2020