Being presented by Dean Paini
The spread of invasive species continues to provide significant challenges to those government biosecurity agencies charged with protecting a country’s borders. In an increasingly connected world, these invasive species are potentially able to spread further and more rapidly. Human mediated pathways such as ships and airlines are the most obvious ways in which invasive species can be spread. Direct routes from one port to another are currently monitored, but indirect pathways, in which a ship picks up an invasive species and then travels to a number of different locations before arriving at the final destination, present more challenging scenarios. For the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, one particular concern is for ships arriving into Australia carrying viable eggs of the Asian gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar). We are developing a real time tool that will analyse the pathways for incoming ships and determine the likelihood the ship could be carrying viable eggs. This strategy is likely to deliver significant benefits to the Australian Government Department of Agriculture and the wider shipping industry. In this paper, we present an ex ante cost-benefit analysis of the proposed policy. We discuss the implications, and the further work required.