Responding to Invasive Pests in the West
A new Signature Program partially funded by the Western IPM Center and led by Oregon Integrated Pest Management Center. This signature program will promote collaboration across state agencies to respond to invasive species challenges.
Program Goals
- Bring together interested partners in the West – including federal, regional, state and local entities – to address invasive insects, plants and plant pathogens, and to plan coordinated responses to emerging threats.
- Improve the integration of IPM into the response to managing newly established species with minimal environmental and human health impacts.
- Educate constituents about the threat that invasive species pose through training, case studies and workshops, in-person and online.
Program Milestones
- An external and internal advisory IPM group will coordinate federal, state and local partners and IPM practitioners to address key knowledge gaps that must be addressed to build a modified IPM program to manage specific threats.
- The Oregon IPM Center will facilitate working groups (e.g. entomology, IPM, etc.) to be included as part of the IPM Invasive Species Toolkit #StopInvasiveSpecies – a joint project among the four regional IPM centers.
- The invasive species working group will strengthen the Regional IPM Centers’ mission, and connect to other groups focused on invasive species. These include the Public Gardens as Sentinels Against Invasive Plants (part of the North Central IPM Center), North American Invasive Species Management Association, and others.
- The Oregon IPM Center working group will identify knowledge gaps and needed research, and will facilitate the development of proposals to be submitted for funding at the state, regional and national level.