$90m last-ditch attempt to wipe out moth

By ANNE BESTON and FRANCESCA MOLD

An intensive pest eradication campaign will take to the skies over Auckland next month in a $90 million attack on the painted apple moth.

More than 160,000 people in about 40,000 households will be in the spray zone when a Fokker Friendship aircraft, a helicopter and light plane begin a last-ditch effort to wipe out the Australian native moth, which threatens forestry and horticulture.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will begin spraying the biological insecticide Foray 48B, or Btk, over 8000ha of West Auckland in the second week of October. A further 4000ha will be included if new infestations of the moth are found.

Officials give the campaign an 80 per cent chance of success. It is being undertaken against the advice of the Treasury.

MAF's $11 million, 600ha, aerial campaign against the moth, which began in January, has failed and yesterday Cabinet ministers approved a campaign 13 times bigger.

If the full 12,000ha is sprayed, more than 64,000 properties will be in the zone, reaching from Massey in the north to Swanson in the west and stopping just short of the Waitakere Ranges. It stretches eastwards to include Pt Chevalier but does not reach Prime Minister Helen Clark's Mt Eden home.

The core 8000ha zone has a price tag of $66 million, and encompasses about 40,000 homes in Avondale, Glen Eden, Henderson, Te Atatu South, Pt Chevalier and New Lynn.

The campaign will run over three years and some areas may be sprayed up to 40 times.

After yesterday's Cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister said she would be "perfectly relaxed" if her house had been in the target zone.

MAF's troubled campaign against the moth has drawn harsh criticism from scientists and residents. The moth had been in West Auckland for 1 1/2 years before MAF began an aerial campaign, despite being urged by scientists outside the ministry to begin a blanket spray operation.

Cabinet papers released yesterday confirm the ministry wanted to back out of eradication, putting a proposal to the Cabinet in July that would have only controlled the moth's spread. But MAF "reviewed" that decision and suddenly beefed up estimates of the moth's potential cost to forestry, horticulture and conservation - from $48 million over 20 years to between $58 and $356 million over the same period.

The Herald understands even senior MAF staff were taken by surprise by the new proposal.

Biosecurity Minister Jim Sutton yesterday defended his department over the biosecurity breach.

"I think it has been technically an extraordinarily difficult project," he said. "There was never any guarantee that an exercise like this would be successful and there still isn't."

Entomologist Dr Peter Maddison, who first identified the moth in mid-1999, said he believed the decision was political.

"It is seen as a botch-up and this is actually an attempt to remedy that, but whether it will work will depend on a lot of luck and goodwill from the community."

Kubi Witten-Hannah, chairman of the MAF-appointed community advisory group, said the ministry could be throwing money down the drain with its renewed campaign.

The ministry had not dealt with residents' health concerns but had adopted a "bullying and hectoring" approach, so only very persistent people got the help they needed, he said.

Mr Sutton said he believed there were no serious side-effects from Btk.

"This is as safe as these things can be. I think the risk of this beast becoming endemic in the environment is greater."

Further reading:
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