The State Forestry Administration (SFA) has strengthened monitoring
measures to bring damages caused by foreign insects under control.
The economic, social and ecological losses brought by several
non-indigenous critters cost about 56 billion yuan (US$6.7 billion)
each year in China, experts said.
In
the past several years, foreign bugs have been introduced in large
numbers and have spread across the Chinese mainland.
The pinewood nematode, also called "xianchong" in Chinese, was
initially introduced to China in 1982 and thrives in the Yangtze
River basin and southeastern coastal cities.
The pinewood damaged by this insect accounts for one quarter of the
total forestry area that faces destruction, experts said.
"Almost all kinds of ecosystems are facing deadly threats from
exotic deleterious invaders. A total of 20 million mu (1.3 million
hectares) of forests are in danger each year," said Zhu Lieke,
deputy director of the SFA.
This is why the administration has taken more effective and
advanced measures to assign 510 national monitoring stations tasks
ranging from quarantine to monitoring.
Each station was given 80,000 yuan (US$9,600) in initial assets and
is given an additional 20,000 yuan (US$2,400) every year by the
Ministry of Finance to fund their operations.
"The transfer of work emphasis from quarantine to monitoring is a
big breakthrough which makes the working mechanism not only more
effective, but also less expensive," said Wu Jian, director of the
Prevention Department for Plant Diseases and Insect Pests.
The biggest advantage of a monitoring station is that it can detect
and find any potential disease and pest before an ecological
tragedy breaks out and thus dramatically reduce costs both
financially and ecologically.
With China's entry into the World Trade Organization, more and more
international exchanges on imports and exports will take place,
making it much easier for non-indigenous species to travel across
borders.
"Tragedies aroused by such species deserve attention by the State.
They not only lead to economic losses, but also endanger ecological
safety, which has great impact on the environment, national land
resources, national defence and military construction," Wu
said.
"Tightening the monitoring procedure is a wise and economical way
to curb imminent ecological disaster."
(China Daily November 25, 2002)