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August 2004. Quarantine from Hainan, China raised some general principles about IRAs (PRA). There is a need to import wood chips of Eucalyptus and the company that wishes to make the importations is sourcing the chips, E. camaldulensis, E. seligna, E. grandis, etc., from Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia,Thailand and Australia. IRAs need to be done but how to get the information in Australia, the country where the species originated.
A number of points were made in relation to the conduct of RPAs:
1. The responsibility for the provision of a pest list of Eucalyptus for Australia lies with the National Plant Protection Organisation’s department responsible for PRA, this is Biosecurity Australia, Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Edmund Barton Building, Canberra, ACT 260, Australia.
2. Note that the list of pests of Eucalyptus in databses, such at that of the CABI Crop Protection Compendium, is not a list of potential quarantine pests of growing Eucalyptus plants. Regrettably, this will not be a complete list since the CABI CPC concentrates on pests in the field and does not have complete listings of pests of timber (matured wood), which is the pathway that is under consideration. Timber pests, such as insect borers etc., that occur on Eucalyptus in Australia, could be provided from the NPPO.
3. This question highlights an extremely important principle of PRAs. Some sources of information are extremely valuable for PRAs, and in particular the CABI Compendium, but it is very important not to rely only on a single information source. It is very important to know the context in which the information was generated, add local knowledge/information and verify with national contacts points what the official status is (e.g., some pests have been officially erradicated or are under offical control in confined areas and this may not be picked up in published literature). Examples occur occasionally and show how important it is to try and verify published information that may affect trade, particularly on distribution and prevalence. This can have a large impact on the outcome of a PRA.
4. National contact points can be found at http://www.ippc.int (this information is updated by countries and not always as current as it should be, but the only single official source for these people’s contact details).
5. The 2004 edition of the Crop Protection Compendium contains information on 140 new datasheets of forest pests of quarantine importance, including timber pests. These detailed datasheets have been commissioned from specialists and include fully referenced text on taxonomy, host range, distribution, biology, symptoms, morphology, impact, control and others, with distribution maps and illustrations. CABI is updating the Forestry Compendium. Forest pests will be included in this edition. In addition to those 140 pests from the CPC, there will be up to 80 new datasheets on important pests of major forest species (standing trees).
6. The CPC now contains over 2100 full datasheets on pests, diseases and weeds of crops and forest trees as well as datasheets on their hosts and natural enemies, plus outline data on another 10,000 species. Features include diagnostic tools, taxonomic trees, search facilities, softlinks, abstracts, notepads, statistics and economic data, and overview articles. The CPC also includes Species Search and Pest Risk Analysis modules. Assistance with the other parts of the PRA process are provided in the structured framework of the PRA module.
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