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five years, the ecotourism concessions unable to generate a steady flow of income from a damaging practice

and use of a slow renewing resource. Research also shows, that net carbon emissions from ecotourism-

controlled land contains between 5.3-8.7 million tons of above-ground carbon, equivalent to between 3-5

thousand years of carbon emissions from tourism. (Kirby et al., 2010) All these effects of ecotourism have

shown a steady decrease in quality of wildlife, interference with natural habitats and ecosystems, and unequal

distribution of profits to those who live off the land and survive off the rainforest’s resources.

The official definition of an invasive species is as follows, “An invasive alien species (IAS) is a

species that is established outside of its natural past or present distribution, whose introduction or spread

threaten biological diversity” (“What are Invasive Alien Species?”, n.d.). Invasive alien species aka non-

native invasive species are characterized by a number of factors, including but not limited to, an ability to

survive on and consume a variety of foods, a rapid ability for growth and reproduction, occupation of large

territories, and an increased physiological ability for adaptation to new environments and climates (“What are

Invasive Alien Species?”, n.d.). The best criteria to identify a non-native species as a potential non-native

invasive species is to review if the species has had a history of invasion in other ecosystems (“What are

Invasive Alien Species?”, n.d).

In the days when global trade and tourism were just beginning, remote biodiverse hotspots were

protected by mountains and large oceans (Lowe et al., 2000). However, today, tourism, global trade,

infrastructure, and overall human development has forced migration of animals and plants outside of their

natural ecosystems and enabled invasion of non-native species into once thriving ecosystems. An example of

one such horrific historic invasion was the intentional introduction of the Nile Perch to Lake Victoria, Africa

in 1954, for the sake of increasing the number of fish in the lake. Ironically, this fish species resulted in the

extinction of more than 200 other endemic fish species native to the lake. The Nile Perch was characterized by

skin with a higher oil concentration than the other fish of that area, thus forcing the fishermen to cut down

more trees for fuel to cook the fish. Deforestation along the lake resulted in erosion and runoff which then

lead to increased nutrient levels. These new conditions introduced the once plentiful lake, filled with a wide

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