Economic Impacts of Pests

Effective pest management is necessary to protect our unique natural environment, way of life and primary industries. However, information is scarce on the economic impacts and true costs of pests to New Zealand.

To address this gap, MAFBNZ contracted Nimmo-Bell, in partnership with Landcare Research, to assess the current impacts of pests on New Zealand’s economy, environment, human health and lifestyle.

The intention of the assessment is to develop indicative cost estimates for pests to New Zealand using currently available information and establish broad estimates of impacts to the economy, environment, human health and lifestyle. It will also provide a methodology that could be repeated every 10–15 years to show how these impacts change over time.

The report estimates the costs of pests through assessing how much agencies and individuals spend on managing and preventing pest impacts (defensive expenditure), as well as the production losses they cause. It then uses a multiplier to estimate the total economic cost resulting from these losses.

Establishing these costs will mean effectiveness and efficiency of pest management across a range of sectors can be compared. It will also be a valuable resource for sector agencies involved in planning and developing pest management programmes.

The study notes a number of priorities for further investigation and analysis. MAF Biosecurity New Zealand will use this information in future research work aimed at increasing its understanding of the costs of pests and quantifying the benefits from pest management programmes.

Page last updated: 28 September 2009