Book Description

Environmentalists often voice concern about threats like acid rain, carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere, water contamination, and declining biodiversity. Recently, many have come to recognize another equally serious threat called biological pollution. Biological pollution is the movement of living organisms, either accidentally or intentionally, from the places where they evolved to new environments where a lack of natural enemies permits their population to explode. These organisms, sometimes called invasive exotic pests, threaten our crops, our forests, and perhaps even our very existence. Biological pollutants, like chemical pollutants, are here because of human activities. But unlike chemical pollutants, biological pollutants cannot be reduced or prevented by legislation. Once biological pollutants are imported, they grow, adapt, multiply and spread on their own unless direct, vigorous, and often costly actions are taken to stop them.Written by biological scientists participating in a meeting sponsored by the Forest Pathology Committee of The American Phytopathological Society (APS), Biological Pollution: An Emerging Global Menace presents a broad spectrum of concerns in nontechnical language to conservation-minded people. The first three chapters provide general background on biological pollution, including insight into the enormity of the problem and the direct and indirect costs to date. The next section provides specific examples of exotic weeds, diseases, nematodes, and insects and the damage they cause. The last section examines the defenses in place and proposed improvements to resisting biotic invasion. Biological Pollution: An Emerging Global Menace is required reading for environmentalists, plant pathologists, horticulturists, weed scientists, nematologists, entomologists, foresters, agronomists and all others dedicated to protecting the environment. Anyone interested in natural resources and agriculture will gain valuable knowledge from this eye-opening publication.ContentsPreface; What Is the Problem?: Controlling Biological Pollution; An Ecological Explosion in Slow Motion; Exotic Pests: past, present and future; Weeds, Diseases, and Other Pests: Exotic Weeds: Expensive and Out of Control; Plant Disease On The Move!; Plant-Parasitic Nematodes Which Are Exotic Pests in Agriculture and Forestry; What Is to be Done?: Meeting the Threat: Risk Assessment and Quarantine; Assessing Exotic Threats to Forest Resources; Political and Economic Barriers to Scientifically-Based Decisions; Fighting Back