WWF-Australia: Victory on Weeds
02 Jun 2005
WWF-Australia strongly welcomes the Federal Government's announcement to ban up to 3,300 potential weeds from being imported into the country.
The decision will close a loophole on the Permitted Seed List which previously allowed the import of known overseas weeds not yet found in Australia.
"This is a forward thinking and smart decision that will close the front door on the potential import of these 3,300 known overseas weeds," WWF's Biodiversity Policy Manager Andreas Glanznig said.
"We now look forward to stage two of the agreed government process - to fully close the quarantine law loophole to the potential import of all invasive weeds," Mr Glanznig said.
The government's decision is based on WWF's hard work on weeds. Last year WWF commissioned the Weeds CRC report, Australia's Front Door Wide Open to New Weeds, which alerted the government to the size of the loophole permitting the legal import of invasive weeds. This included bear-skin fescue, a known overseas grazing and environmental weed that was legally imported into Australia through the loophole and became available for sale as a garden plant in late 2004.
Australia is already confronting a weed cost of $4 billion a year to agriculture alone and the nation does not need any more weeds to add to this cost.
WWF-Australia also congratulates the efforts of Biosecurity Australia for their work in implementing the government's commitment to remove these weeds that are known overseas, but are not yet found in Australia.
For further information contact:
Virginia Dew, WWF Communications Officer
Phone: (02) 8202 1290
Email: vdew@wwf.org.au
or Jacqueline McArthur, WWF Communications Manager - Media
Phone: (02) 9281 5515
Mobile: 0408 626 780
