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The ongoing spread of wheat rusts, a group of fungal plant diseases that stymy the production of the staple grain and other crops, is raising concern in Central Asia and the Middle East and sparking closer international collaboration to study, detect and prevent the threat from advancing further.

FAO launched today a three-year Global Action for Fall Armyworm Control to scale up efforts to curb the growing spread of the invasive pest which is causing serious damage to food production and affecting millions of farmers across the world. Fall Armyworm (FAW), a crop pest native to the Americas, has rapidly spread through Africa, and to the Near East and Asia in the past four years. "It (Fall Armyworm) threatens food security of hundreds of millions of people and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers," said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu. He made the remarks at the launch of the Global Action on the sidelines of the FAO's Council, the Organization's executive body. "This is a global threat that requires a global perspective," he stressed, urging the FAO member states "to greatly scale up the existing efforts" to prevent the further spread of this harmful pest to new regions.

The Russian-English Agricultural Atlas is the world’s most comprehensive source of information on the geographic distribution of plant-based agriculture in Russia and neighboring countries. The Atlas contains 1500 maps that illustrate the distribution of 100 crops, 560 wild crop relatives, 640 diseases, pests and weeds, and 200 environmental parameters.
Special Note: Over 70 scientists from three major Russian institutions and the USDA closely collaborated on this project.

The Mediterranean Sea is being invaded by hundreds of fish, jellyfish, prawns and other marine species from outside the region. More than 1 000 non-indigenous species have been identified in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Over half have established permanent populations and are spreading, causing concern about the threat they pose to marine ecosystems and local fishing communities.

“Climate change and human activities have had a profound impact on the Mediterranean and the Black Sea,” says Stefano Lelli, a fishery expert for the eastern Mediterranean working for the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM). This regional fisheries management body, established by FAO, is leading efforts to promote sustainable fisheries and aquaculture in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Scientists have published a series of recommendations to enable communities and managers to minimise the impact of lionfish in the Mediterranean Sea. The invasive species was first noticed off the coast of the Lebanon in 2012, with sightings since recorded as far west as Sicily, and north into the Adriatic Sea off Croatia. More entered in 2015 due to the enlargement and deepening of the Suez Canal, with their spread unimpeded due to a lack of common predators. Researchers in the UK and Cyprus have said increasing lionfish densities – combined with the species' generalist diet and consumption of ecologically and socio-economically important fish – has the potential to result in further disruption of an already stressed marine environment. They have now published a Guide to Lionfish Management in the Mediterranean [PDF, 8.0 MB], which features a series of recommendations through which they hope lionfish populations can be managed.

Recently, a team led by Prof. LI Yiming from the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, conducted a comprehensive study evaluating the invasion risk of global alien vertebrates, to help facilitate the balance between development and conservation for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This study, published with the title of "Risks of biological invasion on the Belt and Road" in Current Biology, was online on January 24, 2019. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by China is regarded as the biggest global development program ever to occur on earth. It involves nearly half of our planet across Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania and America, covering 77% (27/35) global biodiversity hotspots. Its high expenditure into infrastructure constructions may accelerate trade and transportation and thus promote alien species invasions, which is one primary anthropogenic threat to global biodiversity.