Aerial manoeuvres in the apple moth war

The apple moth fight has ended. Now lessons can be learned from the aerial war, writes ANNE BESTON


Unattractive and flightless she may be, but the female painted apple moth has proved a formidable adversary for this country's biosecurity agency.

As the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry comes to the end of a gruelling five-year effort against the persistent Aussie pest, it now has the job of counting up the cost, not just to the long-suffering people of West Auckland but to its credibility should it need to mount a similar operation again.

So far, the bill to taxpayers for what is cautiously being hailed a successful eradication is $45.5 million, just over half the $90 million-over-three-years the Government gave MAF in late 2002 to get the job done.

If MAF has made hard work of the painted apple moth incursion, many would say it has only itself to blame.

When it was first discovered in Glendene in mid-1999, MAf's then-Director of Forest Biosecurity, Dr Ruth Frampton, took a conservative approach. She had been critical of the rush to aerial spray in East Auckland in 1996 and was not a fan of taking to the air with planeloads of insecticide.

By the summer of 2001, West Auckland was experiencing a painted apple moth population boom which meant up to 900 males a week were being trapped. The original infestation was estimated at just 5ha; 2 1/2 years later the moth was being trapped over more than 30,000ha. It prompted one critic to ask whether MAF was trying to eradicate the pest or introduce it.

Frampton quit in mid-2002 but by then the ministry was ready to give up. In mid-2002 officials offered the Government the option of simply controlling its spread.

Serious head-banging followed. MAF officials were informed that for the Government's biosecurity agency to be seen simply throwing up its hands and conceding defeat was not a politically digestible outcome.

And certainly not if blame for the spread of the moth could be squarely placed at the ministry's door.

By late 2002 the money was on the table and the blanket spraying operation many scientists had been calling for began.

At the height of the blitz, more than 40,000 households or around 160,000 people were included in a 10,500ha spray zone.

The viability of dumping bucketloads of funny-smelling, sticky droplets of a secret-recipe brew over thousands of people in order to protect forestry, horticulture and native forests was tested as never before in West Auckland.

Around 100 families were being evacuated from the spray zone on spray days, complaining of everything from sore throats and headaches to serious asthma attacks, rashes, nausea and respiratory problems.

Anti-spray groups believe West Aucklanders endured 70 days of spraying in all, including the smaller-scale helicopter operation which launched in early 2002.

In Wellington, MAF officials have begun gathering together a mountain of documents for a review of their efforts.

The man ultimately responsible for the painted apple moth campaign and Frampton's successor, Peter Thomson, said the ministry was deciding whether an external review was necessary. If he wants a quick answer on that, he need only turn to MAF's band of campaign-hardened critics who are variously demanding a parliamentary select committee inquiry, a ministerial inquiry or any inquiry at all as long as it is independent of MAF.

"Now is the time to really learn from all of this, to undertake a genuine and honest post-mortem of the whole campaign," says anti-spray campaigner Hana Blackmore.

An astute 60-year-old with a good working knowledge of the political process, Blackmore has been an unflagging critic of the ministry after she joined its community liaison group for the painted apple moth campaign in early 2002.

An East Aucklander, she battled to stop further aerial bombardment of residents towards the end of the white spotted tussock moth campaign in 1996.

After MAF disbanded the painted apple moth community group amid accusations that it was not taking residents' health concerns seriously, Blackmore dedicated her time to finding any strategy at all that might halt the spraying.

Asked if there were any circumstances under which she would give the green light to aerial spraying of urban populations, she replies "probably not".

She says the ministry must now draw up a blueprint of how it would avoid aerial spraying in future.

"There has been no genuine public debate with, and within, the scientific community, especially when their next contract might depend on keeping their heads down," she says.

One group of scientists who learned just how political the painted apple moth campaign had become were the authors of a Wellington School of Medicine report into the community's attitudes to aerial spraying.

The report was commissioned by the Ministry of Health and handed to MAF for release in February.

Although it didn't really contain anything new, it did recommend further study into the long-term health effects of aerial spraying of Foray 48B.

The Health Ministry passed the report for comment to MAF's painted apple moth project leader Ian Gear, who slammed it, calling it substandard, of questionable quality and dubious value.

Health officials then nervously sat on it until late April, citing staff absences as a reason for the delay.

Blackmore immediately accused them of delaying public release until the last of the sprays was safely out of the way, as did Green MP Sue Kedgley.

Kedgley called for an immediate stop to aerial spraying on the basis of the report and an independent inquiry into health issues.

"I don't see either MAF or the Ministry of Health being objective about the risks the spraying poses. I think we've seen outright bias from MAF all the way through," she says.

A "safe food" campaigner, Kedgley regards all chemical spraying as evil, but she is also a member of a political party that regards New Zealand's natural environment as sacrosanct.

The Green Party's biosecurity spokesman, Ian Ewen-Street, says aerial spraying should be a last resort and it is unacceptable for the Government to be blitzing residents with a secret brew.

Pushed on whether he would ever back aerial spraying, he says he doesn't want to be painted into a corner. "I'd rather make the call at the time."

One who will make a call is Dr Peter Maddison, the entomologist who identified that first painted apple moth five years ago.

Regarded as something of a maverick after leaving mainstream science to become deputy head of the conservation group Forest and Bird, he has clear views on what MAF must do next.

"Given that aerial spraying is a major public concern, it should be addressed through a proper select committee inquiry or whatever and the whole issue of how we deal with major pests should be looked at," he says.

"It has proved that aerial spraying has worked, despite all the gnashing of teeth, although we need to know how important the release of sterile males in the whole process was."

The ministry began releasing sterile males last year to interfere with the breeding process but no data on how effective that was has been made available, Maddison says.

The ministry stops short of claiming complete success against the moth in West Auckland, saying it won't really know for at least another year.

Thomson has proved to be a safe pair of hands through the most turbulent times on the painted apple moth campaign trail.

Genial and softly spoken, he has a knack for appearing candid but chooses his words carefully.

He will not rule out future aerial spraying, nor is he willing to concede that MAF has made future campaigns more difficult to sell to the public.

"I guess it's fairly obvious we had a bit of a rocky start but we've tried to be a bit more decisive for the past 18 months and I think that's really paid off.


"There is a part of the community for which any action we take is too much, but it comes down to what New Zealanders expect. How much do they want us to maintain the environment we've got and what are they prepared to do to meet that expectation? That's a really difficult balance to achieve."

Major changes are being made to our biosecurity system, with MAF's role as lead agency more clearly defined (and funded) than in the past.

Sea containers are now inspected at the rate of 100 per cent instead of just 25 per cent. But if there is one thing most agree on, the next pest is on its way - somewhere, some time.

"As good as we try and make our borders, we expect to be faced with another incursion, but I hope before that happens we've got time to explore as many alternatives to aerial spraying as we can."