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

Background & Disclaimer

Marine Environment

Includes: Marine Aquaculture, Commercial Fishery and Marine Reserves

Risk factors specific to the sector:

• International experience with incursions of new species into new habitats indicates chances of early detection and effective response are very low [17];
• Although the scope of this review includes the whole EEZ it is unclear whether the BSA has jurisdiction outside of the 12 mile limit [18];
• Acceptable levels of biosecurity protection (ALOBP) may need to be set lower for Marine environment as there are less commercial impacts and risk reduction and incursion response options are more restricted [19];
• Ballast water and hull fouling pathways cannot be fully controlled. New species which will inevitably enter by these pathways may carry diseases which could affect other marine species or humans;
• Bait fish, frozen prawns and foreign crab species all constitute potential disease risks not currently addressed through import risk analyses (IRAs)
• MFish have developed rapid response procedures for 7 species of unwanted organisms but their budget for providing a rapid response to an incursion is small (~$100,000, [18]) and is likely to be insufficient to deal with a serious incursion.

Surveillance objectives:

• Early detection of any incursions of the 6 exotic high impact species the northern Pacific seastar Asterias amurensis, the fanworm Sabella spallanzanni, the green crab Carcinus maenas, the crab Eriocheir sinensis, the Asian clam Potamocorbula amurensis, and the macroalga Caulerpa taxifolia;
• Monitoring the spread of the invasive macroalga Undaria pinnatifida;
• To design and implement a Surveillance regime that will detect new exotic marine organisms in marine points of entry with the highest biosecurity risk in New Zealand by:
  • Developing criteria for selecting ports and other points of entry that have a high risk of invasion by new exotic marine organisms.
  • Recommending the location and priority of sites to be included in an ongoing Surveillance regime (using the criteria from objective 1).
  • Designing baseline surveys for selected locations identified in objective 2
  • Conducting baseline surveys in selected locations identified in objective 3.
  • Designing a Surveillance regime to detect the presence of new exotic marine organisms in the locations identified in objective 3.
  • Conducting ongoing surveys in the locations identified in the Surveillance regime developed in objective 5 [20].
• To protect the aquaculture industry from the damaging impacts of toxic dinoflagellates;
• To provide supporting data for health status assurances for export markets.

Surveillance processes:

• Ballasted vessels. All vessels >500 DWT must complete a Vessel Ballast Report Form (VBRF) giving details of the origin and volumes of the ballast water they are carrying, and their intentions with respect to discharge of the ballast in NZ waters.
• A baseline survey of organisms in 18 NZ ports, funded from Vote Biodiversity, is currently being done by NIWA for MFish. Although not strictly Surveillance, the surveys are designed to provide background information for later sentinel Surveillance. The surveys are being done in areas of the ports considered at high risk of receiving non-indigenous species because of the volume of ship traffic. Because of limited funding, there is no temporal component to the surveys although a selection of the ports may be re-surveyed once. Details of the project are outlined in Section 2 of this report;
• Passive Surveillance of 7 targeted species [20];
• NIWA has also been contracted by MFish to undertake Surveillance for the 7 species of unwanted organisms in 8 high risk harbours. The Surveillance is scheduled to start later in 2002. The project includes the development of techniques for on-going Surveillance which is being done in collaboration with researchers in Australia where some of the unwanted organisms are already present;
• Fourteen marine reserves currently have monitoring programmes in place. Monitoring is focused on habitat features and communities, and/or selected key species identifying changes in diversity, abundance, and biomass (ie reef fish and crayfish, kina and paua) and/or impacts of human activity and may result in the identification of organisms not previously present, or that may have attained unusually high numbers [10];
• Currently there is heavy reliance on public education package detection of targeted species [20][21][22][23][24][25];
• MFish use their educational material to enhance passive Surveillance. For instance, dive clubs have been provided with information on Undaria and the `top ten' unwanted species. This information is also put to the general public through the media [27];
• Cawthron has developed a very extensive programme for detecting and monitoring toxic dinoflagellates;
• MAF's NCDI and its predecessors have carried out extensive survey and monitoring work over many years to verify NZs status with respect to the OIE list of fish diseases [3];
• There has been some Surveillance work by MAF and DOC targeting marine mammals [10][14][28];
• These include annual sea lion Surveillance - Auckland Islands Jan/Feb and monthly whale surveys of he East Coast of the NI;
• MAF has just contracted the Massey Vet School to undertake a national survey of the health of a range of FW and esturine species [4];
• Cawthron is running an ongoing research Surveillance programme for exotic marine organisms in hulls and sea chests of commercial vessels dry-docked for maintenance/antifouling in Lyttelton, Nelson and Auckland [29].

Strengths:

• Data from the VBRFs are collated and filed electronically by MFish. Eventually, MFish hopes to be able to target their Surveillance on high-risk vessels;
• MFish RMF under development drawing on Sinner/Gibb report [30] ERMA approach [31]and Biosecurity Council programme;
• Offshore information base for identifying emerging biosecurity risks include Trans Tasman/Asia early warning arrangement. APEC for Info from Peru/Chile. IMO for ballast water/ship fouling spp [32];
• There are extensive research programmes operating throughout the country, many involving surveys with a temporal component and wide geographical coverage, that have the potential to detect non-indigenous species because they are being done by scientists with a good knowledge of the marine biota [20];
• MFish has contracted Sinclair Knight Merz to develop a risk profile of unwanted species for New Zealand. They are developing a risk assessment model that includes factors such as risk of establishment, risk of spread and potential impacts. Into the model will be fed data on habitats (based on the CRIMP bio-region classification) and a list of known or potential invaders sourced from the literature [33]. MFish may modify the list of unwanted species being sought in the Surveillance outlined in 4 above depending on the outcome of this project which is due for completion in June 2002 [18];
• There is a substantial effort underway to identify high risk sites for the establishment of founder populations and thus allow targeting of active Surveillance programmes [34][35];
• The toxic dinoflagellate programme has proven to be well-designed [36] and is supported with a good information system and species collection [37];
• There is a good body of data on diseases which are present in NZ marine species [38];
• NIWA have recently produced an excellent handbook of diseases of marine species with extensive photos and references [39];
• The need to include regional councils in the marine biosecurity Surveillance programme has been recognised by MFish and first discussions held [18]
• Cawthron has built up very close and cooperative relationship with the maritime sector.

Weaknesses:

• There are no documented objectives or performance indicators established yet;
• MFish contracts MAF Quarantine staff to check VBRFs but the ballast water is not tested. At present, there is no reliable method to verify compliance of the vessels with New Zealand's ballast water requirements;
• The accuracy (reliability) of data on VBRFs is questionable
• Current MAF records of border inspections do not provide enough detail to assess the nature and extent of risk marine goods arriving in NZ for targeting post-border Surveillance. In the future, MFish would like to conduct a brief survey (~6 months in duration) in collaboration with MAF but this currently has lower priority than other forms of marine Surveillance;
• MAF/MFish operational MOU is silent on Surveillance [12];
• There are no MOUs between MFish and MoH or DOC [32];
• MoH does not recognise any significant marine biosecurity risks;
• The CTOs of MFish and DOC appear to work together on a number of issues but the split in responsibilities between the two ministries is not as clearly defined in the marine area as it is in the terrestrial environment;
• Underlying biodiversity poorly defined. Thus Surveillance includes defining baseline populations [18];
• Insufficient funding, and multiple demands on the funds that are available, will continue to hinder marine biosecurity Surveillance efforts of many regional councils [20];
• Rapid response procedures that need to be followed when potentially exotic organisms are found in New Zealand are not well known to the public [20];
• Marine biosecurity issues are generally not well understood by most stakeholder groups. Achieving `buy-in' to Surveillance will require education at many levels;
• Very little on-going active marine biosecurity Surveillance currently takes place in New Zealand although the Ministry of Fisheries has initiated several programmes that will change that situation from mid 2002;
• Nearly all marine biosecurity is of a passive nature and most of the non-indigenous species that have been identified in New Zealand have been detected as a result of passive Surveillance, often by scientists undertaking surveys;
• There is no evaluation of the effectiveness of the communication plan to drive passive Surveillance. However, MFish recognise that there is a need to develop better feedback mechanisms on their education programmes[20];
• The active or targeted marine biosecurity being developed in New Zealand is entirely focused on pest species rather than diseases [33][40];
• Many Regional Councils acknowledge the importance of marine biosecurity Surveillance, but most lack the funding and/or information to do any themselves. The focus of their monitoring tends to be on the effects of anthropogenic activities and on consent monitoring rather than environment monitoring although there are large differences among regions. Lack of funds is a major issue for many regional councils. Unfortunately, many of New Zealand's high value areas such as Fiordland and Abel Tasman national park are in regions with a low rating base [20];
• DOC regions do not appear to be operating any coordinated programmes for marine biosecurity Surveillance though there are some local initiatives and some monitoring of the health of marine mammals [10];
• A number of organisations are providing diagnostic services to the marine sector but there is no process for ensuring that new diagnoses are reported to or to whom they should be reported. There are several examples of new diagnoses of diseases in NZ marine species being made overseas from material submitted without the knowledge of MFish or MAF. In the terrestrial and fresh water environments all diagnoses or suspect diagnoses of new diseases are rapidly reported to NCDI and any response, including submission for overseas diagnoses is coordinated from there;
• There is a lack of clarity about the boundary between marine and freshwater responsibilities. Some marine species are farmed on land and some FW species in the sea. Most high priority disease risks to salmonids (and potentially galaxids) are likely to come during the marine phases of their lifecycles [39][40];
• Both MAF and MFish are running 0800 services as part of their Surveillance programmes. This can only lead to confusion;
• None of the databases appear to have supporting quality systems and there has been little or no work done on the sensitivity of detection systems [29]
• There are specific areas where there is a limited skill base eg macrophyte taxonomy, marine parasitology and diagnostic virology. HSNO policies are also hindering the development of rapid and accurate diagnostic tools.
• There are examples of MFish not being directly informed of new NIMS incursions by scientific organisations.

Page last updated: 17 December 2008