The economic costs, management and regulation of biological invasions in the Nordic countries.

A collective understanding of economic impacts and in particular of monetary costs of biological invasions is lacking for the Nordic region. This paper synthesizes findings from the literature on costs of invasions in the Nordic countries together with expert elicitation. The analysis of cost data has been made possible through the InvaCost database, a globally open repository of monetary costs that allows for the use of temporal, spatial, and taxonomic descriptors facilitating a better understanding of how costs are distributed. The total reported costs of invasive species across the Nordic countries were estimated at $8.35 billion (in 2017 US$ values) with damage costs significantly outweighing management costs. Norway incurred the highest costs ($3.23 billion), followed by Denmark ($2.20 billion), Sweden ($1.45 billion), Finland ($1.11 billion) and Iceland ($25.45 million). Costs from invasions in the Nordics appear to be largely underestimated. We conclude by highlighting such knowledge gaps, including gaps in policies and regulation stemming from expert judgment as well as avenues for an improved understanding of invasion costs and needs for future research.

A case for the commons: The Snow Crab in the Barents.

Closing of the marine commons increases economic returns and slows depletion of valuable ocean resources. Rights-based management is widely used for fisheries rationalization. Regulators with sound biological and economic information can in theory set overall harvest control rules that protect the fish stocks, and manage for external costs and benefits from harvest. These may include ecosystem damages, overcapitalization in the fishery, and/or equity concerns. Regulatory efforts and related rights-based management instruments may increase the returns to fishery stakeholders but miss important challenges that are increasing under climate change. These include transboundary resource management and tradeoffs between local economic returns and Total Economic Value. The case of the valuable, yet invasive, crab species, Chionoecetes Opilio (Snow Crab) in the Barents Sea illustrates the concerns. The spread of the crab has known and unknown ecosystem and commercial fishery risks, particularly to uncertain ecosystem values. We show how the progression of the biological invasion interacts with human strategic behavior to identify limitations of management options. Open access harvesting of the species in international waters has generated a positive spillover effect by slowing the westward spread of the species to sensitive benthic ecosystems. This benefit is threatened by reclassification of the crab as a "sedentary species" (one which is not capable of leaving the seabed when harvestable (UNCLOS, 1982, article 77, part VI)). This shifts the regulatory environment for the crab in ways that exacerbate the invasion in exchange for protection of local gains. Such problems will increase in magnitude and impact as climate changes increasingly affect species' ranges. Optimal decision-making regarding profitable species in new ecosystems must incorporate how strategic institutional shifts occurring in response to the economic incentives asymmetrically affect local and global stakeholders in addition to standard concerns over ecological and economic damages.