Government in bind on pest fight

By ANNE BESTON

The Government has delayed a decision on a controversial pest eradication programme as it struggles to choose between electorally unpalatable options.

It is caught between angry West Auckland residents calling for a halt to aerial spraying and conservationists' concerns that the painted apple moth is a serious threat to native forests.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said the Cabinet yesterday discussed the future of the $11 million aerial insecticide blitz against the moth and called for more information.

Biosecurity Minister Jim Sutton said a decision would be made next week.

A long-time critic of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's handling of the painted apple moth incursion, Dr Meriel Watts, said the Government was "caught in a very hard place".

Dr Watts said MAF wanted to ditch the programme but the Government knew that amounted to admitting the department had messed up.

Dr Watts is a member of the community advisory group on the painted apple moth programme, appointed by MAF last year to voice residents' concerns on the spraying.

The anti-pesticides campaigner is standing for the Greens in Waitakere at next month's election.

During the past six months, many residents in the Waitakere area have had to put up with the aerial bombardment against the insect.

The Alliance's Waitakere candidate, Coalition minister Laila Harre, was not at yesterday's Cabinet meeting but said she supported her colleagues on the issue.

"I don't think this is a deliberate delaying tactic. I think there are some really important balances that have to be struck here."

Options MAF presented to the Cabinet included a multimillion-dollar aerial bombardment of the moth covering virtually the whole of Auckland; to do nothing; to extend the target spray zone by up to five times its current 600ha to about 3000ha; or to opt for controlling the moth's spread rather than trying to eradicate it.

Dr Watts said a fifth option, backed by the community advisory group, might now be seriously considered. It involves no aerial spraying but far wider removal of host trees and trapping of the moth.

"They have to put more effort into finding out where the moth is but if it's gone as far as Whangarei, well, forget it."

The community option has been rated as having almost no chance of success by the key group of scientists and advisers who have been involved with the painted apple moth programme since the pest was discovered in Glendene in 1999.

nzherald.co.nz/environment