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

Background & Disclaimer

Terrestrial Flora (other than that grown for commercial purposes)

Includes: Indigenous plants and the ecosystems they occupy including forested areas, plant species most likely to be at risk from introduced exotic organisms, protected lands, wetlands, offshore and outlying islands and sub-alpine herbfields.

Risk factors specific to the sector:

• Rapid growth in adventure tourism is creating new incursion pathways which are very difficult to target[48];
• Jurisdictional issues mean there are significant gaps in Surveillance activities for indigenous ecosystems;
• Some 20,000 alien terrestrial plants occur in New Zealand, of which over 2000 are naturalised, giving New Zealand one of the highest records for proportion of introduced species of plants (about 50%) in the world [66]. Approximately 1% of these plants will become invasive weeds [66][67];
• Public ignorance regarding threats to biodiversity or impacts of biodiversity loss is a major contributor to biosecurity problems in the sector and weakens Surveillance efforts[48];

Surveillance objectives:

• Protection of indigenous floral biodiversity from exotic pests and diseases [10];
• Protection of high value habitats and ecosystems from endemic weeds and plant pests and diseases [10];
• Protection of amenity values and valued natural resources in some RPMSs [55];
• Objectives for National Weed Surveillance programme to monitor status?

Surveillance processes:

• DOC operates a well-developed National Weed Surveillance programme [68][69];
• Surveillance for early detection of newly introduced insects or disease in plantation forest areas owned by DOC. This work consists of an annual aerial transect survey with subsequent ground checks of detections, an annual ground survey via forest roading systems including plot surveys in high risk sites;
• Ground examinations, monitoring of pre-selected campsites with high tourist traffic. Surveillance of indigenous forest sites consists of (from 2001/02) surveying pre-selected 'first-night' campsites (maximum of 68 in total) which experience high tourist traffic [10];
• Monitoring of port locations;
• Development and delivery of training syllabus by DOC;
• Contracting by DOC of some diagnostic/advisory services;
• Some species specific monitoring (eg. white rust on coastal cresses);
• Passive Surveillance associated with other survey and research work;
• Passive Surveillance by staff and public; Enhanced passive Surveillance with weed awareness programmes for target audiences;
• Searching for and documenting new weed incursions of conservation concern is covered by flow chart processes and score system for determining feasibility and ranking for weed-led and site-led programmes. Species must be unrecorded or have limited distribution and be potentially invasive weeds;
• DOC is piloting an ecosystem health approach rather than species focus which is:
• EMF - Environmental Risk Framework (domain based);
• MCA - Managing Conservation Achievement (GIS based);
• Specific Surveillance objectives in RPMSs eg [70][71][72][73];
• Monitoring of mistletoe health is undertaken in several areas. The programme aims to monitor mistletoe health in response to possum control using semi-quantitative assessment of foliage coverage in selected mistletoe plants.
• Vegetation plots are also used to measure the impacts of Himalayan Thar on snow tussock in the Southern Alps;
• Most offshore islands are checked regularly for the presence of weeds, and in some cases predators, for example the Sugar Loaf Islands, Raoul Island, Hen & Chickens etc.

Strengths:

• DOC and RCs have large, committed and educated groups of employees working in the relevant areas;
• Overall the weed monitoring programmes seem to be robust;
• DOC's national Weed Surveillance programme has been operating under an SOP since 2001[69] which provides for;
  • Conservancy Weed Strategies;
  • Weed programme manager designated in each area office;
  • Development of area invasive weeds work plans;
  • Focus on sites with a high risk of incursion and/or high conservation values;
• Area Surveillance lists developed, but also suspicious new plants to be identified;
• Area Surveillance lists reviewed annually;
• Invasive plants defined as those plants which can significantly and adversely affect;
  • long-term survival of native species;
  • integrity or sustainability of natural communities;
  • genetic variation within indigenous species;
• RCs have well established and extensive monitoring programmes of the distribution and density of the main established pest species identified in their RPMSs;
• RCs generally have good recording of information on established pests listed in their RPMSs. These vary from simple recording of information in each Council's database to thorough and long term monitoring and analysis with external review [55];
• RC activities under the NPPA provides some enhancement of awareness of potential weed species [74][75];
• RPMSs are based on a public consultation process and risk assessments based on an economic approach [61][62];
• RPMSs are reviewed at least every 5 years [63];
• Most DOC and RC biosecurity Surveillance programmes have no quality systems and are not subject to any external audit even where they are delivered by contracted suppliers [55];
• DOC risk assessments are based on site and weed scores and cost threshold analysis [76];
• DOC sponsored and other recent scientific reviews of threats to the conservation estate have high-lighted risk species and pathways [66][67][77];
• The weakness of the previous individual species approach is intended to be addressed via the new ecosystem approach currently being piloted in Canterbury Conservancy [55].

Weaknesses:

• There are no documented objectives or performance indicators established yet;
• The MAF/DOC MOU currently provides no guidance for Surveillance activities in this sector[13];
• The targeted forest survey is a tiny programme ($42k) and grossly inadequate compared with the $1.5m the Crown and $1m industry spend on Surveillance programmes directed at plantation forests and amenity species;
• National Weed Surveillance programme is still bedding down at Area level [55];
• Wide variation between regions on rigour of assessments and coordination with DOC to protect indigenous values [55];
• Passive Surveillance associated with other DOC And RC survey and research work is unstructured;
• RCs not required to include biosecurity Surveillance plans in their RPMSs;
• The Crown is not bound by RPMSs, section 87 limits coordinated Surveillance and management [63];
• Inability for RC's to have species declared unwanted organisms has hindered Surveillance in some regions. A pest in one region may not be a problem in another;
• In some cases, for example, the recent experience with Kudzu [47] indicates that there are problems with communications between DOC, MAF and RCs on significant exotic pests;
• NPPA not operational - legal issues. Not all councils have signed up to it;
• CTO Surveillance responsibilities are not explicit under the BSA;
• Adventure tourism operators who potentially represent a high risk pathway are not well targeted [48][64];
• RCs generally have no formal Surveillance processes for new incursions or for handling information on new incursions [55];
• For RCs there is a clear separation seen between monitoring of established species and Surveillance for new incursions. RCs have no statutory responsibility or authority to spend ratepayers $$on Surveillance for exotic species unless they are included in RPMSs or have been declared an unwanted organism [63];
• There are critical information gaps which impact on establishment of biosecurity Surveillance objectives [66]; Risk identification is limited by knowledge of pests that could enter New Zealand accompanying risk goods and difficulty in determining the origin of pests that arrive undetected;
• Risk assessment is limited by a lack of knowledge about potential impacts of introduced pests, the probability of incursion, likelihood of establishment and environmental impact if they become established;
• Risk management is limited by lack of knowledge on effective treatment measures and the possible need for novel methods to be developed. Surveillance for incursions of new species is not well addressed;
• DOC/RC boundaries are ill-defined and shared Surveillance activities need better coordination.

Page last updated: 16 October 2008