Backyards and nurseries still harbour worst weeds
07 Sep 2004
Serious flaws in Commonwealth, State and Territory laws are allowing Australia's most invasive weeds to be sold to unsuspecting gardeners, according to a new WWF-Australia report.
The report Garden Plants that are Invasive Plants of National Importance, will be presented by Andreas Glanznig, WWF's Biodiversity Policy Manager, at the 14th Australian Weeds Conference on September 7.
The report found many weeds were still sold by the gardening industry including one serious weed on the Commonwealth quarantine list, 6 weeds on the Commonwealth Alert List, and a quarter of the weeds on the Weeds of National Significance list.
Weeds cost Australia $4 billion a year in lower farm incomes and higher food costs. This now means that Australia loses $1 out of every $7 of its agricultural income due to weeds.
There are now 27,000 introduced plant species in Australia, which is 4,000 more than the total number of native plants species. 94% (25,360) of these introduced plant species were imported as garden or ornamental plants. Of these, over 1300 or 5 per cent are agricultural, environmental and noxious weeds.
"It is hard to believe the community are being encouraged to detect the very serious weeds on the Alert List so that they can be eradicated in the future, while a fifth of them can still be bought at nurseries," said Andreas Glanznig, WWF's Biodiversity Policy Manager. "This directly undermines this important initiative."
"On Threatened Species Day, September 7, we should remember that weeds are a major threat to at least 41 threatened plant and animal species across Australia - gardeners and nursery owners could do something about this today by only stocking non-invasive plant species*," Mr Glanznig said. According to the Weeds CRC, up to 29 threatened plant species, 4 birds, 1 reptile, 3 mammals and 4 butterflies are threatened by weeds.
"Australia's borders remain wide open to the potential invasion by new weeds, with nearly half of the world's plant species able to be legally imported with no risk assessment because of a quarantine law loophole - this means that it is entirely legal to import some of the world's worst agricultural weeds," Mr Glanznig said.
Mr Glanznig said Australian flora and fauna now face a major threat from the large pool of 'sleeper' weeds and invasive garden plants poised to 'jump the fence and go bush'.
"With the exception of Queensland and South Australia, all States and Territories have failed to honour a 2001 promise to ban the sale of all Weeds of National Significance (WONS). This means that the WONS, bridal creeper, remains for sale in NSW, which places the ACT at risk of invasion. The ACT has by far the weakest legal approach to preventing new weed problems," he said.
Mr Glanznig said: "A far stronger national effort is needed to fill these embarrassing cracks. The Commonwealth Government needs to put national regulations in place to ban the sale of the couple of hundred nationally important weeds. This proposal is supported by the Queensland and Western Australian governments."
* A new national list of 1036 naturalised invasive and potentially invasive garden plants is available here.
Andreas Glanznig: 0417020174 or WWF-Australia Press Office - Jacqueline McArthur (02) 9281 5515 Mobile 0408626780 and Virginia Dew (02) 82021290 or email - vdew@wwf.org.au, Andy Ridley (02) 82021237, 0415865992.
