Hi welcome to Taiga Bonsai, in this article we continue our discussion with a look at what other nations are doing to prevent the spread of pests and disease.

Introduction – in Australia pests and disease are a significant social, economic and environmental burden for the nation. They affect primary production, productivity, access to export markets, public health and amenity. In addition, conservation of biodiversity, natural and built environments suffer.

These effects can reveal themselves through increased costs of production, loss of or restrictions to export trade, reduced tourism, loss of biodiversity, greater public health costs and reduced public amenity.

Some introduced pests and diseases for example, animals (rabbits, foxes, carp) are often infected with Johne’s disease, a chronic, contagious and often fatal disease of cattle, sheep and goats, caused by the intestinal bacterium Mycobacterium. Plant pests including blackberry and mimosa are infected with the potato cyst nematode that has become established over time in Australia with no prospect of eradication.

Some of these pests and diseases are reported to have economic, environmental or social impacts of national significance. Consequently, a nationally coordinated approach may be required. Given the shared responsibilities for their management among stakeholder groups. The effective management of nationally significant threats requires clarity of policy direction, priority, roles and responsibilities.

Governments at the national, state and territory levels; industry and individual landholders, have invested jointly in pest and disease management over many decades. These investments have been made across the biosecurity continuum onshore, at the border and offshore.

Managing biosecurity is critical to a sustainable and productive agricultural sector and healthy environment. It protects farmers and the environment from the impacts of serious pests and diseases. Which can significantly increase the costs of production and market access, domestically and internationally and affect the native flora and fauna. Effective management of established pests and diseases also assists Australia to meet its obligations with respect to international trade.

Under the Coalition of Australian Governments Intergovernmental Agreement on Biosecurity of 2012, states are implementing reforms to strengthen the national biosecurity system. The aim is to deliver more effective and sustainable biosecurity outcomes for all. One focus of this agreement is to establish a national framework for managing established pests and diseases of national significance. Consistent with emerging policy across numerous portfolio areas, there are opportunities to:

• “move away from government enforcement as a primary means of managing the impacts of established pests and diseases
• adopt approaches in which the nature and magnitude of investment is determined by the extent and balance of public and private benefits
• focus public investments on strategic functions including addressing market failure
• promote more collaborative working arrangements between government and those stakeholders directly affected by established pests and diseases rather than have stakeholder groups acting in isolation.”

World Trade Organisation (WTO) – Kamal Saggi and Mark Wu in their World Trade Review Volume 16 Issue 2nd April 2017, pp. 279 – 302, state “Global exports of agricultural goods exceeded $1.7 trillion in 2014, with food accounting for over 80% of the total value.” “Such cross-border movement of food and agricultural goods helps ensure the sustenance and economic well-being of billions around the world. Yet, trade rules for agriculture remain an extremely sensitive issue. This is particularly the case when agricultural imports carry the threat of disease.”

“Not surprisingly then, under the rules of the World Trade Organization member countries are allowed to restrict the importation of agricultural products from diseased regions. However, if governments could do so without limitation then this freedom could quickly devolve into a protectionist excuse that has the potential to seriously thwart trade liberalisation in the agricultural sector.”

Saggi and Wu argue that relevant WTO rules therefore, “must seek to balance two competing objectives providing sufficient flexibility for sovereign governments to regulate imports from diseased regions,” while simultaneously culling out protectionist measures for which the threat of diseased imports simply serves as an excuse for keeping imports at bay.

“Getting this balance right is tricky, in 1994, Uruguay Round negotiators drafted the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) to spell out in detail the requirements that a WTO member must follow when seeking to ban or restrict imports of agricultural goods.”

We know that every country has its own endemic pest and disease problems, some have invaded other lands by wind and wing a natural phenomenon and also by the hand of man resulting in consequences on a catastrophic scale. which we have little chance of eradicating.

Because (a) we cannot see the problem until it is too late and (b) we lack the technical knowledge of how to arrest the situation. Yes there are many chemical solutions that can be used, but not all are effective especially with the many of pests and diseases we have mentioned in these articles. Moreover, these chemicals are not only dangerous to human health they eek into the soil killing microbes, earthworms, nematodes and other much needed creatures.

It can be agreed that commerce is an important factor in the modern world, but our attention to detail has been lackadaisical to say the least. Countless goods have been exported in infested packaging worldwide – the pests and disease have escaped multiplying in their millions ravaging agriculture and forestry. Many nations are now spending billions to eradicate pests and disease and the cost is escalating, whilst poorer under developed countries whose national GDP is practically non-existent suffer in silence and starve.

As stated “whatever course of action deemed necessary taken either by individuals, communities and/or sovereign nations, there will always be stiff opposition and the threat of sanctions of one description or another.” Yet nations continue to blame each other instead of looking closer to home. It is imperative that we find common ground to seek solutions to curb the never ending invasion of pests and disease world-wide, failure to do so will result in devastating consequences.

As a species we rely on an array of factors vital to our very existence including technology, transport, housing, energy, education, medicine, clean water, forestry and agriculture for our immediate needs. If these are not protected then we face the inevitable – a world of devastation, dire water scarcity, where famine and pestilence rampage amok. Is this a world we want our children’s children and their descendants to inherit?

We wrote this series of articles to highlight the problems mankind has created and battled with for aeons, a predicament that is now escalating unprecedentedly. In the next article we look at the possible reason and cause why we have arrived at this juncture. Until next time, BW, Nik.