Inaugural International Pacific Invasive Ant Conference

New Zealand attendees at the International Pacific Invasive Ant Conference.
New Zealand attendees at the International
Pacific Invasive Ant Conference.

MAF Biosecurity New Zealand (MAFBNZ) staff were among a large contingent of New Zealanders attending the inaugural International Pacific Invasive Ant Conference (IPIAC) held in Hawaii during May. Hosted by the United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Plant Protection and Quarantine (USDA, APHIS, PPQ) and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture, it was a very well run conference, held at an excellent venue.

Simon O'Connor, MAFBNZ Senior Adviser, was a keynote speaker, with a presentation that focused on the Pacific Ant Prevention Programme.

He says attendees from the mainland United States were mainly concerned with everyday pest management issues around the ever present red imported fire ant (RIFA, Solenopsis invicta). "To put this in perspective, the RIFA control industry in the United States makes the New Zealand's possum control efforts look like a picnic," he says.

Attendees from Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands (including Hawaii) had more of a 'take no prisoners' approach to invasive pests, and tended to focus on prevention of entry and establishment, with an uncompromising approach to eradication, Simon adds.

In addition to Simon O'Connor's keynote speech, New Zealand was represented through Disna Gunawardana's (MAFBNZ Investigation and Diagnostic Centre – Plant Health and Environment Laboratory) presentation on the current RIFA eradication attempt, and Lester Matson's (AgriQuality Ltd) presentation on the surveillance and mapping technologies. Both presentations were well received and showed just how seriously we manage invasive ant incursions.

Nacanieli Waqa from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) gave an excellent presentation on Operation Kadridri (see Biosecurity 75:10). He demonstrated what can be done to prevent the evolution of unmanageable RIFA incursions through effective information sharing, cooperation, rapid response and political support. The capability to conduct this emergency surveillance work was the result of the preliminary implementation of the Pacific Ant Prevention Programme, of which MAFBNZ has been a strong advocate and supporter.

During breaks from conference proceedings, many of the New Zealand and SPC attendees took time to view first hand the impacts of little fire ant (LFA, Wasmannia auropunctata) that is established in the Hilo region of Hawaii's big island. Under the kind and expert guidance from Hilo local, Pat Conant, we saw first hand LFA 'farming' the honeydew-producing homoptera on squash, taro, citrus, guava, kava, coconuts, palms, bananas and macadamias.

The New Zealand contingent was very impressed by the conference and came away with a new appreciation of our biosecurity legislation, incursion response and surveillance capability and the political awareness and support for invasive ant issues.

For further information on little fire ant:

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Page last updated: 30 April 2008