NPPA Technical Advisory Group (TAG) evaluation criteria

The full version of this document is available as a PDF Version (214 KB) . The appendix for the criteria document is also available as a PDF Version (44 KB) .

Executive Summary

The National Pest Plant Accord (NPPA) is a cooperative agreement between regional councils and government departments with biosecurity responsibilities to prevent the sale and/or distribution of specified pest plants within New Zealand.

This report commissioned by Biosecurity New Zealand develops a draft framework for the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to determine which plant taxa should be included on the NPPA, including evaluation criteria for the NPPA to address the level of impact and associated risk to economic, health, environmental and cultural values and effectiveness and efficiency of this designation in supporting management objectives and intervention. The report also discusses regulatory impacts including technical justification for/relevance of intervention at the border. This report follows the criteria outlined in the Biosecurity Integrated Risk Management Assessment Framework (IRMF), developed and adopted by central government biosecurity management agencies in 2004.

The rationale for inclusion on the NPPA list is that plants of limited distribution within New Zealand, that have major deleterious impacts and are difficult to control once established may be prevented from further distribution, where deliberate distribution by human activities would increase their potential range and level of impact. The designation of plants on the NPPA as unwanted organisms allows for management provisions resulting from Sections 52, 53 and 100 of the Biosecurity Act (1993) to be enforced (prevention of sale and/or distribution throughout New Zealand and provision to manage a new incursion on a regional basis). However, unwanted organism status is also used by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to justify an “official control programme” for contaminant organisms intercepted at the border. The implications of NPPA status of pest plants on this and other regulatory impacts require assessment by Biosecurity New Zealand.

Application of the weed risk assessment models (WRA) to candidate plant taxa provides a score or ranking allowing comparison of the weedy potential of that plant with others and, from this comparison, the determination of taxa for inclusion on the NPPA list. For the NPPA to be an effective and efficient method to manage plants that may be sold and/or distributed in New Zealand, other characteristics need to be considered in addition to their WRA score. These include current and potential distribution/abundance, appeal as a cultivated plant and management/control considerations. The TAG is provided with a framework and criteria, outlined in this report, to make a series of value judgements to determine if pest plants should be included on the NPPA list.

Page last updated: 31 January 2011