Monday, November 16, 2015

An ounce of prevention policy is worth........a pound of invasive species management​​


Dear forest pest mavens,



we know tree-killing insects and pathogens continue to be introduced ... but at what rate?  Is the rate higher than for other types of plant pests?  What can we learn from introductions of other types of plant pests?



Unfortunately, the data APHIS has made available, and the several studies over the past decade or so, do not allow us to detect trends arising from current policies or compare what policies work and don't work.  (The most important studies, dealing with wood packaging and imported live plants, are using data from up to 6 years ago -- and policies have changed in the interim.) 



I call on APHIS to make its various kinds of data - port interception data, species data, "newly established" data from CAPS or other surveys - available for analysis by independent experts.



The blog is posted at www.cisp.us



Faith