The Status of Biological Invasions and their Management in South Africa in 2019 [FIRST 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). We are inviting you to submit comments, corrections, and queries on the attached report (the first order draft of the second status report on biological invasions ). We have prepared a standard form for commenting that you can fill in if you wish, 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 (available to download at https://www.sanbi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/National-Status-Report-web-6MB.pdf) 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 as it is possible that there are errors with the information, if so, we would appreciate your assistance in identifying these errors and welcome suggestions on how to rectify them. 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. We would like as many people and organisations to make inputs as possible, so please pass the report on to anyone you think might be able to contribute. We will capture all comments received during this commenting 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: Thursday 17 February 2020 Form for commenting: Appendix 5 This is a “first order draft”. It outlines the format and sections of the intended report, and provides some preliminary findings, but many of the estimates of indicator values will change as a result of ongoing analysis, and because of inputs received during this review period. Therefore the results should not be viewed as indicative. They are simply demonstrative of what the final report will look like. Notes are added to the text to indicate where additional analyses are pending. Thank you in advance for your comments, this report relies on the active participation of a wide range of stakeholders, and 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, Wednesday 18 December 201