Terms of Reference

National Advisory Meeting

Peer Review of the National Guidelines for Assessing the Biological Risk of Aquatic Invasive Species

June 3-5, 2008

Parksville, BC

Chairperson: Nick Mandrak

Background

Many of the science issues facing Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) are associated with significant knowledge gaps and uncertainties. This, however, does not relieve the department of the need to make decisions on these issues. Under these conditions, decisions must balance the risks and uncertainties while ensuring the sustainability of Canada’s aquatic ecosystems. Risk assessment is the process of estimating the risk presented by a hazard, in either qualitative or quantitative terms, to aquatic ecosystems, fisheries resources, fish habitat and aquaculture that DFO is mandated to manage and protect. DFO currently faces hazards from aquatic invasive species (AIS), climate change, and fish habitat alteration, with the potential for any or all of these hazards to impact species at risk (SAR), biodiversity, aquaculture or fisheries resources. AIS are now considered one of the lead threats to native biodiversity (Sala et al. 2000, Dextrase and Mandrak 2006).

The National Code on Introductions and Transfers of Aquatic Organisms identifies risk assessment as central to the process of assessing proposals to move aquatic organisms. The Canadian Action Plan to Address the Threat of Aquatic Invasive Species identifies risk assessment as one of the implementation strategies to deal with the threat of AIS. By forming the Centre of Expertise for Aquatic Risk Assessment (CEARA), DFO has taken the first steps toward developing the necessary expertise in risk assessment across the country, building on expertise developed in Burlington at the Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. One of the mandates and objectives of CEARA is to develop a scientifically defensible national protocol for conducting detailed biological risk assessments of aquatic invasive species. These were developed following the National Risk Assessment Methods workshop held June 2006, and were peer reviewed in November 2007. The detailed level risk assessment guidelines were unable to be finalized at the peer review meeting due to outstanding issues with the risk assessment methodology. Work has been ongoing since then to address the shortcomings. This meeting will bring together key, invited risk assessment experts who will help finalize and review the guidelines (two protocols: rapid assessment protocol; and detailed level risk assessment).

Objectives

The objectives for this meeting are to:

1. critically review the draft guidelines provided prior to the meeting;

2. develop solutions to address shortcomings; and,

3. peer review the final guidelines at the end of the meeting.

The meeting will generate a proceedings report summarizing the discussion and decisions of the participants. This will be published as part of the CSAS Proceedings Series. The finalized national guidelines for assessing the biological risk of aquatic invasive species will be documented as science advice via the CSAS Series.

Participation

Participants (approx. 15) will include the CEARA Directorate and risk assessment experts invited from within, and outside, DFO.

Nova Scotia Provincial Representatives

Fishing Industry

Timetable

• April 2008 – invitations, draft agenda sent to invited participants

• May 2008 – relevant documents send to participants for review prior to the meeting

• June 3-5, 2008 – meeting to occur

• Fall 2008 – proceedings circulated to meeting participants for review

• Winter 2008/9 – meeting documents finalized and submitted to CSAS.

References Cited

Dextrase, A. and N.E. Mandrak. 2006. Impacts of invasive alien species on freshwater fauna at risk in Canada. Biological Invasions 8: 13-24.

Sala, O. and 18 others. 2000. Biodiversity-global diversity scenarios for the year 2100. Science 287: 1770-1774.