Development of a strategy to combat invasive species in the state of Berlin

The EU regulation on the prevention and management of the introduction and spread of invasive alien species has been in force since 2015. In order to efficiently implement this EU regulation in the state of Berlin, the project aims to develop a Berlin strategy to combat invasive species. The client is the Senate Department for the Environment, Mobility, Consumer and Climate Protection (SenUMVK). On the basis of the currently valid state law, the respective mandatory tasks and their current implementation will initially be reviewed in a process- and practice-oriented manner in cooperation with the client and other agencies responsible for enforcement. Once the results have been presented, responsibilities will be clarified or reassigned in a participatory process and a rough concept for more effective cooperation between the various stakeholders will be developed. In particular, the structure of a monitoring system required under Article 14 of the EU Regulation will be designed, incorporating information from the Habitats and Water Framework Directives as well as all other data used across authorities to monitor nature and the landscape. The monitoring system must be designed to be sufficiently dynamic to enable rapid and effective action against invasive species by the competent authority in the state of Berlin. The rough concept will therefore take into account both the implementation of individual management measures and the enforcement of bans. In a final step, the strategy will be concretized to such an extent that the requirements of EU law can be implemented in the state of Berlin and that it can be used as the basis for a Senate resolution.