Tracking invasive species eradications on islands at a global scale

Indicators for tracking conservation efforts at a global scale are rare but important tools for understanding trends and measuring progress towards global conservation targets. Eradication of invasive species from islands is an increasingly used conservation intervention in countries and territories around the world. With a goal of collating these efforts, the Database of Islands and Invasive Species Eradications (DIISE) holds records of the location, target species, year and outcome of invasive mammal and bird eradications on islands from around the world. The database is publicly available in Spanish and English, at <diise.islandconservation.org>, and represents a partnership between the University of California at Santa Cruz, University of Auckland, IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group, Landcare Research and Island Conservation. The database holds records for more than 1,200 eradication attempts. This database will continue to be added to and evolve as new opportunities for its application arise; thus, we expect these numbers to change over time as new events are added and knowledge about existing events improves. Updating the DIISE relies on contributions from experts and reporting from island restoration activities. Here we present database history, parameter definitions and database considerations. We also highlight additional studies the underlying data have contributed to, including evaluating the native species benefit from invasive mammal eradications on islands, and global indices to track progress towards the Convention of Biological Diversity Aichi target 9 (Invasive Alien Species), that explicitly requires an increased effort of eradication of priority invasive species.