A true tale of sex, power & money

摘要

Thank goodness for lust. Specifically, for love-lorn male moths... and in particular the hapless Asian gypsy moth snared by the charms of a Waikato pheromone trap. In reality, biosecurity is about much more than fatal attraction. Of course, as in every classic epic, there's a cast of thousands - invaders at the gate. And then, like any really good movie plot, in recent times power, money and intrigue have all been features of our ongoing biosecurity drama. Take the power, for instance. Following persistent concerns about the way painted apple moth (PAM) has been handled, the Biosecurity Council review last year promised to take a hard look at the way biological defences are managed in New Zealand. The resulting draft strategy drew huge criticism,because it basically advocated "business as usual", so new working parties were set up to look at submitters' specific concerns. While he hopes this will produce something useful, forest health consultant Gordon Hosking says the weakness of the current system is that responsibility for national biosecurity is spread across a number of different government departments. Unless there are some fundamental changes here, he says, we're in trouble. That's because biosecurity throws up the type of tricky challenges that require government departments to work together in the national interest. In contrast, recent incursion responses have often been fragmented and disjointed, as disparate departments either compete head on or proceed with their own agenda.