USDA APHIS NBCI

NBCI communicates and publicizes significant activities, cosponsors and participates in meetings and exhibitions, encourages documentation and evaluation of biological control releases, and provides training in and educational resouces on biological control. NBCI also acts as a liaison among APHIS and various stakeholders in the biological control community (e.g., other Federal agencies; cooperating local, State, national, and international institutions; private industry; universities and agricultural experiment stations; and the general public). By these activities NBCI brings biological control to the attention of the media, environmental groups, scientists, administrators, elected representatives, and citizens in general.

• Encouraging biological control as the first option considered for managing pests and as the basis for IPM;
• Developing common targets, priorities, and goals;
• Fostering cooperation at the agency, interagency, inter-regional, and international levels;
• Increasing funding and personnel in biological control;
• Supporting interdisciplinary biological control studies and implementation;
• Contributing to improving laws, regulations, guidelines and procedures for importation, interstate movement, and releases of biological control agents;
• Promoting long-term monitoring and evaluation as a standard procedure in biological control programs;
• Documenting, publicizing, and marketing biological control;
• Educating the public, their elected representatives, and others about the benefits of biological control as an environmentally and economically acceptable pest management strategy;
• Establishing a Customer Advisory Group (consisting of 12 leading Federal, State, and other biological control scientists), and a Visiting Scientist/Special Expert category (special projects) to guide NBCI.
• Producing APHIS' first Customer Service Plan ("Fast-Tracking Biological Control") and periodic Customer Satisfaction Surveys to help refine NBCI's priorities and activities.

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