Australian Quarantine Review Secretariat Australian Quarantine a shared responsibility

APPENDIX B: RECENT INCURSIONS OF QUARANTINE CONCERN

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APPENDIX B: RECENT INCURSIONS OF QUARANTINE CONCERN

1 INTRODUCTION

The Australian Quarantine Review Committee commissioned a number of consultancies to provide information on recent incursions of pests and diseases to identify the number and rate of incursions over the past 25 years and to highlight any deficiencies in quarantine policy or procedures over that time. Four reports were commissioned, to cover recent incursions of:

· pests and diseases of animals;
· pests and diseases of forest trees and products;
· pathogens of plants; and
· weeds.
The Review Committee did not commission a report on pests of plants because of the availability of a review of incursions of insect pests undertaken in mid-1996 for the Bureau of Resource Sciences (Clarke in prep.).

1.1 Terms of Reference

The terms of reference for each commissioned report were:

· to document the introduction and establishment of the relevant pests and diseases in Australia from 1971 to 1995 by:
– identifying incursions leading to the establishment of new or formerly exotic organisms during this period;
– summarising information on the timing, location and extent of spread within Australia;
– providing details of reference sources of information on each incursion during this period; and
– tabulating summary information on all such detections and incursions.
· where possible, to identify the probable means of introduction of each incursion:
– resulting from natural migration or invasion (unrelated to quarantine policy or practice);
– resulting from inadequate quarantine procedures (e.g. barrier controls); or

– resulting from inadequate quarantine policies (e.g. import protocols).

· to document (as far as possible from existing information) the economic and environmental cost of these incursions, including:
– costs incurred through reduced production;
– the cost of control and eradication measures;
– how these costs were estimated; and
– details of reference sources of information.
Each report was specifically to:
· exclude:
– description of each pest or disease or details of its effects;
– discussion of the life cycle, world distribution, or mode of transmission of each pest or disease;
– detailed history of the pest or disease in other parts of the world; and
– any specific recommendations.
· use summary tables where possible and discuss trends by examining incursions detected during each five-year period between 1971 and 1995.

1.2 Objectives

The Review Committee hoped that the commissioned reports would enable it to obtain comparable information on a range of taxa of potential pests and pathogens affecting a broad range of animal and plant species over the past 25 years. Comparable data were sought to enable an assessment of the relative number of pests and pathogens that have been introduced and become established. The Review Committee intended that the commissioned reports would provide information on:

· The number of cases of incursions and establishments
The Review Committee sought information on the number of incursions over the past 25 years so that numbers could be compared, both between sectors (animal and plant) and subsectors (e.g. aquatic animals and companion animals, or grains and horticulture), and with the cost of quarantine services.
· Methods of entry
The Review Committee sought information on the probable means of introduction of each incursion to try to identify the relative proportion of incidents resulting from inadequate quarantine policies, inadequate quarantine procedures, and natural migration or invasion unrelated to quarantine policies or procedures. It was also hoped that such analysis might identify any high risk pathways of entry that quarantine authorities might consider for closer examination in future.
· Costs
The Review Committee sought information on the costs of incursions over the past 25 years so that the magnitude of these costs could be compared, both between sectors (animal and plant) and against the cost of quarantine services.
· Trends
Comparable data were also sought so that the Review Committee could assess whether or not there has been any significant trend in the rate of incursions (either in total or of different types of pests and pathogens) over the past 25 years.

1.3 Interpretation of Data on Introduction and Establishment

For the purpose of this appendix, it is important to distinguish the different types of incidents relating to incursions of exotic pests and diseases. Many incidents involve merely detection of pests and diseases at the quarantine border — either at inspection on arrival or in post-entry quarantine — without multiplication and establishment. For example, Clarke (in prep.) notes that during the period from 1990 to 1994 alone more than 19 300 consignments of imported goods examined by quarantine border staff were found to have insect pests on arrival in Australia. From these, a total of 24 500 specimens were examined. About 10% were definitely known not to occur in Australia, 40% were known to occur in Australia, and for 50% it was not possible to be sure whether or not the pest occurred in Australia (e.g. because identification undertaken was insufficient to determine the precise species involved).

Other incidents involve introductions that were promptly detected and contained, leading to successful eradication. However, other incidents involve introduction and establishment, often with significant multiplication and spread within Australia from the site of the initial introduction.
The data on numbers of introductions and establishments in the commissioned reports and other sources examined by the Review Committee are not always directly comparable because of variations in the way authors have treated 'introduction' and 'establishment'. The Review Committee acknowledges that such data are only a crude indicator for several reasons, including:
· variation in monitoring, surveillance and diagnostic capacity between different host species, between different taxa of pests and pathogens, and over time during the study period;
· difficulties in ensuring comparability in enumerating incursions across different taxa and sectors (e.g. in counting variants such as strains or serotypes consistently as either a single incident or as multiple incidents);
· problems in making appropriate allowance for the emergence of new pests or diseases (or new discovery of host–pest or host–pathogen combinations previously not noticed), both overseas and in Australia;
· comparisons of the apparent number of incursions or establishments do not take into account significant differences between their consequences, which range from no detectable effect to significant spread and damage (either to primary industries or the natural environment);
· comparisons of the apparent number of incursions or establishments do not take into account the huge increases in trade (in terms of both volume and diversity) and travel during the past 25 years.
Australia's endemic pest and disease situation became clearer over the past 25 years with improvements in diagnostic technology — although the improvements have not been uniform across either different taxa of pests and diseases or across different species of hosts. Consequently, animal and plant health authorities have identified more pests and diseases already present in Australia, detected more potential pests and pathogens on entry at the quarantine border, and found evidence of more potential pests and pathogens in post-entry quarantine than previously. Thus apparent numbers of and trends in the number of incursions or establishments need to be interpreted with some care. Despite these difficulties, the Review Committee believes that information summarised in this appendix provides a useful overview — albeit imperfect and of a somewhat preliminary nature — of what is known of the number, rate and effect of incursions of exotic pests and pathogens over the past 25 years.

1.4 Preliminary Nature of the Reports

The Review Committee wishes to stress that the commissioned reports were completed in only a very limited time, so that they provide preliminary information that needs to be subjected to more detailed analysis. Each of the authors and co-authors of the reports recognised the fact that their reports could not be comprehensive and were not able to be subjected to formal peer review during the limited time available during the course of the Review.

The Review Committee commissioned scientists or scientific groups external to the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) and other parts of the Commonwealth Department of Primary Industries and Energy so that they were produced by scientific experts with no direct links with quarantine policy or procedures. The contracts were issued through the Bureau of Resource Sciences, which the Review Committee anticipates will publish the reports in a discussion paper for future reference. This appendix summarises the main findings of the reports, with a particular focus on the information they provide on the number and rate of incursions, their probable means of entry, and their economic effect. The reports were being finalised as the Review went to press, and there might be some minor adjustments to numbers shown in tables analysing the incursions and establishments in some reports (e.g. plant pathogens, weeds). Although there may be some minor differences in numbers shown in this appendix and those that finally appear in the finished contracted reviews, these will not have any substantive effect on the conclusions that can be drawn from the reports.
The Review Committee did not commission a report specifically on animal pests (that is, vertebrate or invertebrate animals that establish as pests of the natural environment). However, the report on animal pests and diseases noted that there had been some incursions of animal pest species during the study period (e.g. the Northern Pacific Seastar, Asterias amurensis). Similarly, the Review Committee did not commission a report specifically on incursions believed to have resulted from introductions through ballast water and fouling of vessels' hulls (see Section 6.2.1.1 of the Report). However, recent reports are available elsewhere on various aspects of this issue (AQIS 1995, Furlani 1996).

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