Maine Integrated Pest Management Council Issues a Statement on Invasive Species
The Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Council recognizes the importance of managing invasive species and generally supports efforts in this area. However, suppression of invasive species is not a goal by itself and should be pursued only for the purpose of mitigating adverse environmental and economic impacts on affected ecosystems. Some control efforts may be damaging to the environment, and their indiscriminate use to reduce numbers of invasive organisms will do more harm than good. Furthermore, complete elimination of certain invasive populations could be cost-ineffective, and/or have deleterious effects on non-target species. Therefore, the IPM Council encourages a judicious and integrated approach to invasive species management and selection of the least-harmful techniques based on our knowledge of invasive species biology.