Invasion Biology Theory Under Scrutiny

Abstract

Since its emergence in the 1980s through the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) programme, invasion biology has evolved into a dominant conservation framework that utilizes a discourse of ecological urgency to justify harmful interventions against so-called non-native species. Although critics have long attacked its xenophobic and militaristic rhetoric, the epistemological grounds sustaining the field remain under-examined from an animal ethics perspective. This article contributes to the latter body of literature by deconstructing the invasiveness paradigm by identifying four constitutive traits that serve as the epistemological foundations of exclusionary conservation practices: nativeness, otherness, spatial exclusion, and risk. This article revisits the claim raised by critical scholars that mainstream debates have largely ignored the ethical implications of these foundational narratives for non-human sentient individuals. By exposing the speciesist assumptions within the field and addressing the ethical limitations of existing scholarship critique, the article engages with and renews critiques of the paradigm as grounded in a discourse of othering and violence. Lastly, it calls for a non-speciesist ethical turn within public policy to go beyond the invasion biology paradigm by challenging the legitimization of harm and fostering more just and adaptive forms of multi-species coexistence in environmental governance.