An Independent Review of New Zealand's Biosecurity Surveillance Systems-Forestry

Background & Disclaimer

Forestry

Includes: Exotic forests mainly consisting of Radiata species.

Risk factors specific to the sector:

• Limited number of inspections of the increased container and used vehicle traffic into New Zealand;
• Dead insect interceptions are no longer reported thus removing any evidence of new entry pathways. These data were previously used by the forest industry as an indicator of possible risk;
• Smuggling of new plant material into New Zealand as seeds or cuttings;
• No evidence of Surveillance for exotic organisms in plant nurseries.

Surveillance objectives:

• There are no overarching Surveillance objectives for this sector.

Surveillance processes:

• The Director, Forest Biosecurity, MAF Biosecurity Authority is responsible for a number of Surveillance programmes for new organisms;
• In addition to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Forestry Biosecurity (MAFFB) programmes, the Forest Owners Association undertakes its own Surveillance programme of commercial forests;
• There is a Forest Biosecurity Consultative Committee chaired by the Director Forest Biosecurity. The Terms of Reference refer to forest pest Surveillance and response including; collaboration on the development of technical and forest operational forest pest Surveillance and response standards; consultation on technical and operational forest pest Surveillance and response standards; updates on responses to incursions of pests of forest tree species [79];
• There are five formal Surveillance programmes to detect organisms new to New Zealand, which are funded and supervised by MAFFB and designed to detect new to New Zealand organisms. They are:
  1. Risk site survey around sea ports for example, to detect all pest incursions, are carried out by Vigil Forest Health Advisory Services;
  2. Surveillance of exotic trees within small commercial blocks of forest under 100 hectares in size. e.g. local authority forest blocks, also managed by Vigil;
  3. General passive Surveillance programme undertaken by National Plant Pest Reference Laboratory (NPPRL) and Forest Research;
  4. Gypsy moth trapping managed by AgriQuality and carried out since 1994/95 [80];
  5. The wood boring and bark beetle trapping also managed by AgriQuality which was begun this year and will continue into 2003 [81].
• The commercial Surveillance programme funded and organised by the Forest Health Advisory Committee of the Forest Owners Association provides comprehensive Surveillance coverage of the major commercial forestry plantations. The programme is based on the Carter Model developed by Peter Carter in 1989, in which predetermined guidelines are prescribed for varying intensities of Surveillance ranging from the "aerial survey" to "drive through roadside" to a focus on "random point sampling". This cost benefit tool which has been enhanced over the ensuing years, is funded by a members' voluntary levy which collects $1million per annum [82]. As well as looking for exotic and established pests this Surveillance programme is used to determine the overall health status of the forests. It is estimated that 1.3 million hectares out of a total of 1.8 million hectares are covered. When pests and diseases are identified, specimens are sent to Forest Research for assessment as to their significance to the industry. It is an excellent example of industry taking responsibility for its own Surveillance but it is regrettable that the programme does not have much credibility with MAFFB
• MAFFB forest Surveillance is focused on specific risk sites based on MAF's assessment of risks. This includes urban forests, native forests, small forest blocks and commercial forests.
• Specimens from MAFFB Surveillance programmes which are sent to the NPPRL for identification do not have the resulting information transferred to the Forest Research database.

Strengths:

• Provide an early warning of possible incursions of exotic pests such as gypsy moth, which if established in New Zealand, would result in significant economic loss;
• Demonstrate to the forestry industry that MAFFB is committed to active Surveillance programmes;
• Provide a regular assessment of the health and pest status of the exotic forests;
• Enable the commercial foresters to use the data to assure overseas markets of the pest status of the New Zealand forests.

Weaknesses:

• The MAFFB programmes are not supported by the commercial forestry interests and MAFFB appears to have developed their programmes with little or no input from industry;
• The current programmes, which are largely survey-based, do not and will not detect all incursions of pests of economic significance. For example, the recent detections of unwanted organisms such as the painted apple moth and the silver tussock moth were made by members of the public in the Auckland area
• The findings from the Forest Owners Association Surveillance programmes are not acceptable to MAFFB for the purposes of market access negotiations. MAFFB will not make statements about freedom of pests without technically justifiable guarantees in place;
• MAFFB does not share the information from its own pest identifications, outside of those made under formal Surveillance programmes, with Forest Research, which catalogues the information from the commercial surveys;
• The commercial Surveillance programme does not extend to adjacent native forests which could be an unknown reservoir of both exotic and endemic pests.

Page last updated: 16 October 2008