‘Know your friends’

Frighteningly, the ‘New Year’ is already more than one month old and the timeframe for preparing our re-bid becomes ever tighter. When we launched ‘CRCNPB Mk I’ back in 2004 we used the catchphrase ‘Know your enemies’ as one of the key rationales for biosecurity activities as a defence against plant pests and diseases. That line remains valid but it occurs to me that ‘Know your friends’ is going to be just as important this ‘second time around’.

During January the Re-bid Task Force held a meeting in Melbourne. Subsequently, Simon and I have made visits to potential ‘friends’ who have the capacity to make big contributions to the international component of our re-bid.

In my case, I was invited to take part in a workshop held at Manado, North Sulawesi, and hosted by the Pacific Institute for Sustainable Development in association with other partners* in the Australian Indonesian Biosecurity Community project (AusIndoBIOCOM) led by Professor Ian Falk of Charles Darwin University.

Taking the existing AusIndo BIOCOM project ‘Managing Biosecurity Across Borders’ as a starting point the workshop examined current and future directions for plant biosecurity with a focus on key drivers for the re-bid: securing trade and market access; emphasising social sciences, including community engagement, and developing international linkages.

The workshop was a supreme example of why it is so important – to Australia and its near friends and neighbours – that we are border-vigilant.

As a gateway to the northern and eastern provinces of Indonesia, Manado was an excellent choice of venue through which to demonstrate this point. Developing, rapidly, as a tourist destination, like any other gateway Manado representsa significant biosecurity risk.

But, whilst Manado is a gateway to Indonesia, the whole Indonesian archipelago stands across numerous avenues, natural and man-made, by which pests and diseases may enter Australia. Not surprisingly, given that 15 of 32 Indonesian provinces grow wheat, the spectre of stem rust strain Ug99 making its way south through the islands was a topic of keen discussion.

Plant biosecurity risks in Indonesia itself include major food staples such as rice, maize, coconut and banana. Indeed, Ian’s map is titled ‘Food for Thought’ and we can expect that the nexus between global food security and global biosecurity will be a feature of the forthcoming conference Global Biosecurity 2010, now just a few weeks away.

But in North Sulawesi there are also risks to the marine environment, the basis of the flourishing tourist trade. As has been noted many times, while the environments differ the principles of maintaining biosecurity are the same. That’s why it’s gratifying that our colleagues in the ‘Australian Biosecurity CRC for Emerging Infectious Disease’ and the ‘Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre’ are joint hosts with the CRCNPB for Global Biosecurity 2010. I look forward to seeing you there.

*Charles Darwin University, Bakti East Indonesian Knowledge Exchange (Makassar), Jikti East Indonesian Researchers’ Network, Universitas Mahasaraswati (Bali), Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana (Java) and Universitas Nusa Cendana (West Timor).

Images:

PhD students, Theo Litaay (left) and I Wayan Mudita (right) with Professor John Lovett (middle)

Map courtesy Ian Falk, January 2010