There was a time when the pulse of international conservation and the battle against invasive alien species resonated deeply through the pages of a very special newsletter. As a former co-editor of six historic issues of Aliens, the Invasive Species Bulletin, the publication of the IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group, I often look back at that era with great fondness and satisfaction. Although the newsletter has recently undergone a complete transformation under a new editorial team, and the group's central website is undergoing a major restructuring, the legacy of those specific six issues - published from 2009 to 2013 - remains very much alive, as demonstrated by the citations they continue to receive to this day across numerous scientific articles.
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| Aliens: The Invasive Species Bulletin (2009-2013) |
What truly defined the bulletin during our tenure was an uncompromised commitment to quality, driven nearly entirely by the authority of its contributors. It was never a peer-reviewed academic journal in the traditional sense, yet its reliability was absolute because it was penned by the world's leading experts who brought their firsthand field experience directly to our pages. It was an organic, almost artisanal endeavor, realized with the support of the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), which helped co-produce, print, and visually shape those issues before distributing them worldwide. In those days, the publication maintained a strong physical presence, with printed copies meticulously shipped to countless institutions and international libraries, where they survive today as tangible pieces of conservation history.
Looking back at the specific content of those six issues, it is impossible not to marvel at the groundbreaking and varied ecological challenges we had the privilege to cover. We brought our readers frontline accounts of remarkable management efforts, such as the eradication campaigns against the California kingsnake in the Canary Islands, the early-stage invasion responses to the yellow-legged hornet in France, and the innovative deployment of trained sniffer dogs in Australia to track down the hidden nests of invasive red-eared slider turtles. We documented continent-wide control strategies, from the cross-border management of the raccoon dog in Scandinavia and the complex strategies for managing the impacts of feral camels in Australia, to the delicate control efforts targeting the invasive American ruddy duck to protect native European waterfowl. Our pages also explored large-scale ecological disruptions, including the massive impact of introduced North American beavers in South America's Tierra del Fuego, alongside curious anomalies like the escape of African hippos into the rivers of Colombia.
These stories were not just news, but early warnings and invaluable case studies that anticipated many of the global biosecurity debates we face today. For anyone who remembers that vibrant era of conservation, or for those simply curious to explore the roots of modern invasion biology through these historic, home-grown pages, I warmly invite you to revisit these six issues through the links provided below:
And to the rare few who might still hold one of those original physical copies sent to libraries years ago, know that you possess a true relic of a time when passion, world-class expertise, and domestic ingenuity came together to protect the world's biodiversity!
