The Removing Barriers to Invasive Plant Management in Africa Project, implemented in four African nations (Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda and Zambia) between 2005 and 2010, stands out as one of the most wide-ranging and ambitious campaigns yet undertaken in the global effort to ‘scale up’ the fight against damaging impacts arising from the spread of invasive alien species.

This informative and beautifully illustrated book is one of many outcomes of this four-year UNEP/GEP project. It sheds valuable light, not just on the huge challenges facing sub-Saharan Africa and many other parts of the developing world wracked by alien plant invasions, but also on the broader global dimensions of the invasive alien species’ menace – now universally recognised as one of the gravest threats to the ecological, social and economic well-being of the planet.