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Home > Pest Survey & Management > Pest Information > ALB > ALB Updates > New Regulations

 

New Regulations Proposed by U.S. Department of Agriculture to Help Stem the Tide of Non-Native Pests

Four hundred non-native insects and plant diseases are wreaking havoc across North America

 

ARLINGTON, VA, October 15, 2009 —The Nature Conservancy, working with industry partners and scientists, is supporting revamped regulations proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to improve its ongoing efforts to block non-native insects and diseases from entering the country and protect American homeowners, businesses, agriculture and native trees.

First adopted in 1918, U.S. regulations governing international trade in plants have remained fundamentally unchanged as this trade has mushroomed to at least 500 million plants imported each year. The U.S. government is accepting public comments until Oct. 21 on the revised rules.

“The USDA’s proposed regulations are a vital step in the right direction. The rules will do more to prevent foreign insects and pathogens from entering the country, rather than have citizens, business owners and communities bear the costly burden of controlling an invasion,” says Frank Lowenstein, director of the Conservancy’s Forest Health Program.

Industry and conservationists are uniting ahead of the change in plant import regulations by launching a new educational campaign, Plant Smart, to encourage careful planting and to support actions that result in better protection of America’s trees from harmful foreign species.

“The nursery industry faces huge costs both to control the pests and in loss of sales and other interruptions,” says Jerry Lee, Environmental Services Manager at Monrovia, a nursery that supplies more than 5,000 garden centers nationwide. “When our company was hit by the Sudden Oak Death pathogen, we suffered tremendous business interruptions and expense. Had the pest never been introduced from outside the United States, this all could have been prevented.”

New plant pest introductions are detected at a rate of one every 12 days. Some of these threaten America’s trees, adding to the burden of the approximately 400 tree pests already established.
If implemented, the USDA rules would create a new category called NAPPRA (Not Authorized for Importation Pending Pest Risk Assessment), under which the nation could quickly stop
import of some problem plants until procedures can be implemented to ensure they are safe.

The USDA, industry and conservationists agree that stronger federal regulations are needed on plant imports. The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is the primary agency tasked with preventing the entry of potentially invasive pests and pathogens through nursery plant imports and other pathways. Without updated regulations, homeowners, horticulture and timber-related businesses, forest land owners, and governments all face billions of dollars in lost revenues or costs to control the pests.

“Invasive foreign pests and diseases are scarring landscapes in neighborhoods, city parks, ski slopes and hiking trails, and killing the trees that bring us maple syrup, fine furniture and Major League Baseball bats,” says Faith Campbell, senior policy representative at the Conservancy. “Often it is simply impossible to control them once the pests are established, so we need better regulations in place to prevent invasive insects and diseases from entering the country.”

Of 25 extremely damaging forest pests introduced since the mid-1800s, 18 are believed to have arrived on imported plants — including sudden oak death, the citrus longhorned beetle, chestnut blight and the cycad blue butterfly (the caterpillar of which feeds on tropical cycads).

Because the pests and diseases arrive on live hosts, they can survive a relatively long time. In many cases, they live long enough to arrive at a nursery, where they can spread to other plants and end up in places where it is a short hop to local forests. These invaders are taking a disastrous toll on ecosystems from dying oak trees in California's woodlands to the standing ghosts of dead Fraser fir on North Carolina peaks.

How to prevent the introduction and spread of invasive foreign pests and diseases:

• Write to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in support of the new rules, or call 1-877-378-5457 for assistance.
• Ask your local nursery how they keep their plants free of invasive insects and diseases, and let them know you support those practices.
• Ask your local nursery staff for help identifying invasive plants so they won’t become a problem for your yard or local trees.
• Learn to identify invasive forest pests. If you spot an invasive pest or disease on trees in your community, click here to learn how to report it.
• Clean your boots before you hike in a new area to avoid spreading harmful weed seeds and diseases such as sudden oak death.
• Don't "pack a pest" when traveling. Fruits and vegetables, plants, insects and animals can carry pests or become invasive themselves. Don't move firewood or cuttings or live plants more than 50 miles (it can harbor forest pests) and throw out food before you travel from place to place.
• If you’ve experienced the destruction of invasive pests, either in your yard or while exploring the forest, send us your story and photographs for possible publication.
• Volunteer at your local park, refuge or other wildlife area to help remove invasive species. Help educate others about the threat.
• Support the Conservancy’s work to protect trees.

If you work in the nursery industry:
• Join the Plant Smart campaign to help protect your business and America’s trees.
• Write to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in support of better regulations that prevent the importation of harmful species.
• Ask your suppliers about best management practices they have adopted to reduce this risk.

To learn more about the Plant Smart campaign and for tips on how the nursery industry and consumers can help prevent the spread of invasive foreign pests, visit www.plantsmart.org in the coming weeks.