![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2011\/09\/Screen-shot-2011-09-22-at-5.33.44-PM-150x150.png\" "\\"Screen")
<\/p>\nHomeowners and taxpayers are picking up most of the tab for damage caused by invasive tree-feeding insects that hide in packing materials, live plants and other goods imported from countries into the United States every year.<\/p>\n
Results from a first-of-its-kind economic analysis, which estimates financial damage of importing foreign insects into the nation and trying to eradicate them once they establish, are reported in the journal PLoS One today.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The authors, which include University of Central Florida Biologist Betsy Von Holle, looked at three types of invasive pests that feed on U.S. trees, the emerald ash borer, gypsy moth, and hemlock woolly adelgid. Using actual costs, researchers calculated the economic damages for five categories: federal governments, local governments, households, residential property value losses and timber value losses to forest landowners. The costs were staggering.<\/p>\n
The costs of invasive forest insects to local governments is on average more than $2 billion per year and residential property value loss due to forest insects averages $ 1.5 billion a year. The federal government spends on average about $216 million a year.
\n\u201cIt is costing taxpayers billions as the government tries to eradicate these invaders,\u201d Von Holle said. \u201cWe\u2019re losing a variety of native sp<\/p>\n
ecies as a result of importing these pests. It\u2019s not just aesthetics. It\u2019s impacting our economy and our analysis shows just how much it is costing all of us, not just government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wood-boring insects such as the emerald ash borer and the Asian longhorned beetle alone cost local governments an estimated $1.7 billion. Approximately $830 million is lost in residential property values each year.
\nThe research team was composed of scientists from U.S. and Canadian universities and the U.S. Forest Service. The team\u2019s analysis also can be applied to other countries that face similar problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, international trade has tremendous benefits, but it also has costs,\u201d said Juliann E. Aukema, the lead author and a scientist with the University of California at Santa Barbara\u2019s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS). \u201cThe regulations we currently have aren\u2019t keeping the pests out. We need to strengthen regulations and enforcement of them to protect our forests and our economy.\u201dWood-boring insects are not the only troublesome pests. Foliage feeders and sap feeders cause an estimated $410 million and $260 million, respectively, in lost residential property value each year.<\/p>\n
And the costs will likely continue as there is a 32 percent risk that a new invader will enter the country in the next 10 years, exacting even more damage.<\/p>\n
In addition to the three pests used for the study, researchers also used an exhaustive database of established non-native forest insects, and a novel modeling approach to arrive at their results. The authors have developed an analytical framework that can be used in any country where data are available. The framework can be easily adapted for estimating costs in other natural resource sectors, including fire, disease, and water quality, at scales from municipalities to nations.<\/p>\n
Co-authors include Brian Leung and Corey Chivers from McGill University, Montreal; Ken Kovacs of the University of Minnesota; Kerry O. Britton, Susan J. Frankel, Robert G. Haight, Thomas P. Holmes and Andrew M. Liebhold from the U.S. Forest Service; Jeffrey Englin from Arizona State University, and Deborah G. McCullough from Michigan State University. The Nature Conservancy supported the group\u2019s work.
\nVon Holle joined UCF in 2007 after working at the Smithsonian\u2019s Environmental Research Center, Harvard University and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Homeowners and taxpayers are picking up most of the tab for damage caused by invasive tree-feeding insects that hide in packing materials, live plants and other goods imported from countries into the United States every year. Results from a first-of-its-kind economic analysis, which estimates financial damage of importing foreign insects into the nation and trying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":1541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n