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As invasive alien species do not respect borders, coordinated action at the European level will be
more effective than individual actions at the Member State level.

IAS Brochure

IAS species Mapping Tool

Introduced species and biodiversity

Overexploitation

Natural resources are undeniably crucial for our days life, nonetheless, exploitation methods
destroy and negatively impact natural environment, ecosystems and habitats.

Overexploitation occurs when the extraction rate of the resource is higher than its replacement.
As a result, the extraction site is completely destroyed and, depending on the situation, adjacent
areas can suffer from a cascade event.

Amazonia Deforestation

Tropical Rainforests looks a luxurious ecosystem, with high species and ecological
diversity, but actually is quite fragile when it comes to deforestation.

In a Tropical rainforest, it’s normal that old trees fall, making openings that allow younger
individuals to thrive. In a deforestation process (overexploitation), large areas get their trees cut.
This way of removing the tree, destroys the habitat, not allowing to recover, like in a normal old
tree fall process. To add to this situation, rainforest soils are not very deep, they are maintained
by all vegetation of the forest. Once the vegetation is totally removed, the soil gets exposed, and
if it rains, erosion process gets in place.

If timber would be removed from the rainforests using a sustainable exploitation method (for
example, only removing tree of a certain size), the rainforests would remain resilient and resistant,
and at the same time maintaining the timber production.

Image 16. Deforestation process in Amazonia Forest. On the left google Earth satellite image for
the fish spine pattern (lighter green areas) of deforestation. On the right photograph of a
deforestation area; the brown area with exposed soil corresponds to the lighter green areas on
the satellite photo.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the
views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the

information contained therein.