An Independent Review of New Zealand's Biosecurity Surveillance Systems - Introduction
New Zealand's biosecurity system, which is designed to protect the country from the impacts of exotic and previously introduced pests and diseases, is based on four inter-locking subsystems:
- Managing risks off-shore as far as possible;
- Protection at the border and through quarantine and post-entry conditions;
- Surveillance systems to detect pests and species which may have entered New Zealand;
- Control and eradication programmes to manage or eliminate unwanted pests.
Of these subsystems, Surveillance is probably the least understood by the public and has been identified as an area of concern by a number of people. This review focuses on the use of surveillance within New Zealand's borders. These activities can be seen to stand alone from other biosecurity activities and in that sense could be called Surveillance with a capital "S" - a key component of the biosecurity management process which needs a specific and appropriate policy framework in which to operate.
Surveillance is achieved through systems set up to detect changes in the health of farmed plant and animal populations including exotic forests and fresh water and marine fisheries. There are also Surveillance activities directed towards detecting new species in New Zealand that could harm our indigenous terrestrial, fresh water or marine species and their environments.
These systems operate at a number of different levels, some more formal and others highly dependent on public observation and reporting of unusual organisms, or unexpected environmental changes.
Over the course of this Review, the project team was impressed by the dedication and commitment of both the government and industry staff involved.
Public and other stakeholder expectations are high in this area and have been rising over recent years due to a number of much-publicised biosecurity events, both in New Zealand and offshore.
Most of the expectations relate to the performance of activities by public sector organisations, which have limited resources and no ready means at their disposal to increase their resource base to cope with escalating demands. A legacy of over 15 years of continual restructuring of government departments has also taken its toll in terms both of morale and institutional knowledge, as well as disruption of operating systems.
These factors in turn have caused difficulties with the maintenance of continuity and quality of Surveillance programmes.
Nonetheless, despite their difficult working circumstances, a strong sense of commitment is evident amongst the scientists and others involved in Surveillance. Their dedication should be recognised as a real strength on which to build a more effective coordinated system.
The stakeholder representatives with whom we spoke are also genuinely concerned and supportive of their counterparts in the public sector and keen to play their part in participating in improvements.
There is also a lot of good expertise available to assist biosecurity Surveillance functions to be more effective, however the current operating framework does not necessarily allow for it to be well harnessed.
Defining success
Success may be defined as the achievement of desired aims and objectives. For Surveillance, these generally fall into the following four categories:
- Detections of new organisms early enough for cost effective decisions to be made on their future management;
- Provision of warnings of pest or disease threats early enough to allow risk mitigation measures to be taken;
- Provision of adequate and timely information to decision-makers to facilitate containment or limitation of spread of an established pest outside a particular geographic area;
- Acceptance of assurances about New Zealand's pest and disease status by overseas trading partners.
Strategic Challenges
The need for a robust Surveillance system to detect organisms that are new to New Zealand and which pose biosecurity threats is increasing rather than decreasing.
Despite increased investment in border control over recent years, our borders will continue to leak because:
- There is a limit to the amount of pre-border control that can be exerted on goods and passengers effects without compromising trade and travel;
- Border control measures are limited by the need to balance passenger rights and freedoms and those of traders with risk management, as well as by available technology;
- New organisms can enter New Zealand by uncontrollable means such as windborne spread (eg insects and birds blown across the Tasman from Australia) or on ocean currents;
- They can also arrive as "hitchhikers" on passengers, containers, seagoing vessels or aircraft in spite of best endeavours to control these pathways;
- Some organisms are microscopic, or sub-microscopic, and can cross borders undetected unless very specific and targeted procedures are undertaken to find them;
- It is not possible to totally eliminate the possibility of illegal introduction of organisms by direct smuggling or inadvertently as "hitchhikers" with smuggled goods and/or illegal landings of vessels on uninhabited areas of coastline, and;
- The volumes of goods and passengers are rising and their points of origin are becoming more diverse as New Zealand becomes increasingly a part of the global community.
In addition, new organisms that may have unwanted effects can appear or increase their distribution in New Zealand due to genetic mutations, hybridisation, or environmental and ecological changes.
Whilst these issues are not new, global forces are increasing the challenges to New Zealand's biosecurity system.
With regard to Surveillance a summary of these forces includes:
- Increased volumes of traded goods flowing into New Zealand;
- Increased numbers of passengers arriving at airports;
- Increasing diversity of points of origin for both goods and passengers;
- A growing gap of culture and understanding between town and country;
- Climate change;
- Increasing pressure on the public purse for diverse areas of taxpayer investment;
- A relentless pressure for ongoing cost reduction to maintain business competitiveness - flowing throughout industries worldwide;
- The continuing desire by New Zealanders to import more new strains or species; this group includes gardeners, the pet trade, hunters and recreational fishers as well as the productive sector.
As a result:
- The risk of incursions of unwanted organisms is increasing, and;
- The resources available to detect, diagnose and investigate these incursions in a timely manner are increasingly over-stretched.
Page last updated: 16 October 2008