Thank you to everyone involved in Invasive Species Week recently! It was another fantastic week thanks to your hard work. We’ve pulled together some highlights below and an infographic summarising some of these.

From 20-26 May 2024, over 200 organisations across England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man took part in Invasive Species Week.

Seventy-five events were held including:

• 17 talks and webinars covering topics from the international impact of invasive non-native species to eDNA and conservation detection dogs. Six webinars hosted by the NNSS had 559 attendees and 334 views of the recordings. 
• 42 awareness raising events, including volunteer training days, guided walks, an invasive species survey, pop-up stands at lakes and reservoirs across the country, and a tour of local garden centres to promote Be Plant Wise.
• 16 volunteer events by Local Action Groups, to tackle four invasive non-native species. A fantastic 21 tonnes of floating pennywort and 4,300 Himalayan balsam plants were removed. 

On X (Twitter) over 500 tweets were shared using #INNSweek or #InvasiveSpeciesWeek. Thirty-five tweets from the Invasive Species Week account reached almost 22,000 people alone. Forty-four blogs and 27 videos were published by a wide range of organisations covering topics from specific species, such as Asian hornet and American mink, to introduction pathways and biosecurity. Visits to the Invasive Species Week webpages were 456% higher during Invasive Species Week than the week following.

The Animal & Plant Health Agency ran an extremely popular discovery stand at Chelsea Flower Show to raise awareness of Asian hornet, which was awarded a Gold medal and Best in the Discovery Zone.

You can view all events and activities from the week, including NNSS webinar recordings, on the Invasive Species Week website. If there’s anything you’d like us to add, please get in touch.