Didymo Stakeholder Update - 29 April 2008

29 April 2008

The purpose of this update is to keep you informed about the work underway around both the didymo long-term management partnership and the wider didymo response.

Looking towards July 2008

From 1 July this year the didymo long-term management (LTM) programme and associated activities will formally become the responsibility of MAF Biosecurity New Zealand's Pest Management Group. Preparations are well underway for this. The partnership structure and resources that are already in place for the long term management of didymo will remain, but there will be some changes in the MAFBNZ personnel coordinating the programme. The Biosecurity New Zealand response group will continue to be on hand to respond should a didymo incursion occur in the North Island.

John Sanson, National Coordination Manager, and Corinna Bennett, Didymo LTM Coordinator, will be the key people within the Pest Management Group providing coordination support to the programme partners. Corinna joins MAFBNZ in early May to allow an effective handover from the current coordinator, Lesley Wilson, who leaves at the end of June.

The long-term management programme for didymo outlines roles and responsibilities for MAFBNZ and regional partner groups. The programme document can be viewed on the MAFBNZ website at:

Didymo - partners

The following diagram shows the structure in place to support the programme, and the links between elements of that structure. If you have any questions about this, about MAFBNZ's ongoing commitment to the programme, or would like more information, please email didymo@maf.govt.nz

Didymo samples database

Those who use the database may be interested in new functionality that was added two weeks ago. Information about the new features has been appended to this update.

Now that the didymo samples database is being used by all regions sampling for didymo, detailed and up to date information is always available. Since the beginning of this year 325 samples have been taken throughout the country and entered into the database. Sixteen of these have returned positive results as follows:

To view sampling sites and results go to the Didymo Samples Database on the didymo 'Partners' section of the Biosecurity New Zealand website .

Read-only access to the information is available to anyone using the following login:

Username: Didymo
Password: didymosamples1

Those who use read-only access are also able to generate and export reports from the database.

Didymo knowledge sharing project

The didymo knowledge sharing project is now close to completion. The objective of the project is to provide a simple and effective mechanism to share knowledge about didymo among partners. The project will deliver a hard copy Quick Guide, didymo.net (a web-based collection of authoritative documents and resources relating to all aspects of didymo), and a web-based discussion forum using a shared workspace.

The collection will include documents not only from MAFBNZ, but also from other partners who wish to share their knowledge among the didymo long-term management community. The shared workspace will provide the ability for partners to seek informal input from each other and to participate in discussion forums. Both of the sites will be password access only and will be restricted to didymo long-term management partners.

Communications update

We have received interesting and informative didymo regional summer social marketing reports this year; if you haven't already sent in your report or invoice please do so. The reports are a valuable tool for us to use when planning for next year's social marketing campaign.

We are beginning this financial year's didymo social marketing campaign evaluation. A questionnaire will be emailed to over 45,000 people in the coming weeks. The information we receive from this will help direct the campaign for the following year. Thanks to all those who have made suggestions regarding the research, and to those who have helped with its distribution.

The Auckland Hutchwilco Boat Show takes place in May, and MAFBNZ staff will be attending the event giving practical cleaning demonstrations of boats, waders and fishing rods. As with the introduction of the popular pocket cleaning guides, this is a further move towards providing more practical messages, rather than background information on didymo itself.

MAFBNZ staff recently attended the Maadi Cup secondary school rowing champs held on Lake Ruataniwha. We worked with DOC staff to provide information on cleaning. Special attention was given to school teams returning to the North Island. Lake Ruataniwha now has a great cleaning facility that provides a model for other rowing and sporting venues.

To report an exotic pest or disease, call the MAF Emergency Pest and Disease Hotline: 0800 80 99 66

If you do not wish to receive these updates please email didymo@maf.govt.nz with 'Unsubscribe' in the subject line

APPENDIX: Didymo samples database enhancements

Thanks very much to all those who are diligently using the samples database to record sample visits and results – your efforts ensure that the database contains accurate and up to date information. Also thanks to those who have suggested enhancements: we have implemented some of these – see below for details.

Switching between site record and map

Previously users could go to the site record directly from the map, but not vice versa. This has changed. When opening a site record in the database you will notice a new button at the bottom View on Map – clicking this button takes you to the map with the site you are viewing in the centre highlighted with a red star. You can then zoom in or out keeping the map centred on your site. Clicking on the site number in the Site Details panel takes you back to the site record.

More detail on map

Previously the map has only shown the portion of affected waterways that are downstream from the uppermost positive sampling site. Now the map highlights that section in dark blue, and shows all other parts of the waterway, and all surrounding waterways, in light blue (ensure you have ticked both positive and unaffected waterways in the drop down Options box in the coloured bar at the top of the map). More waterways and names show up the further you zoom in.

Don't forget that you can use the Options menu to tell the map to show you positive sites, suspect positive sites or negative sites – or any combination of those.

Maps on site visit form

The site visit form now prints with three maps of the site attached, at scales of 50km, 5km and 500m to 2.5cm. These maps are a useful reference for the sampler. To print this view open the visit form, and choose the Print button on the bottom right – a new window will open and after a short loading time the form and maps are ready to print using the File menu – scroll down to view the maps on the screen.

If the form does not print on two pages you need to adjust the print margins to 10mm on the left and right sides of the page.

Printing, or copying and pasting a map

If you want to print a map view from the map screen, choose the Print button in the coloured bar above the map – this will open the map in a new screen which you can send directly to your printer.

If you want to paste a copy of the map into a document, you can do this in two ways:

1. When you have the map view you want, hit the Print Screen button on your keyboard, go to the place in your document where you want the map and choose Paste. This will paste a shot of the whole screen.

2. If you want the map only, or the map and the details, hit the Print Screen button, then paste into a graphics editing programme such as Microsoft Paint to select the information that you want to copy. Then paste the selected part of the image into your document.

Reports

The report formats have been improved to provide more flexibility to choose the information you want, and to make them easier to work with when exported. An additional report has been added that will download all of the data at once if desired.