Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, November 29 Title: Resolutely Curbing the Risk of Proliferation -- An Investigation on the Difficulty of Controlling Invasive Alien Species in China
Xinhua News Agency reporters Huang Yaoteng, Xu Haitao and Wang Zichen
Recently, many places have jointly "encircled and suppressed" the invasive alien species "Canada's Yellow Flower", which has aroused widespread concern in society.
What threats will invasive alien species pose to China's ecological security? What factors outside of natural transmission exacerbate the spread of invasive alien species? How to improve the efficiency of governance and cut off the chain of communication? Xinhua News Agency reporters launched an investigation into this.
The invasion of alien species shows a momentum of spreadIng the agricultural and forestry industry has not suffered much
According to the 2020 Bulletin on the State of China's Ecological Environment, more than 660 invasive alien species have been found in China, of which 71 have caused or have a potential threat to natural ecosystems and have been included in the List of Invasive Alien Species in China, and 219 species have been invaded into national nature reserves.
"Here's a Yellow Flower from Canada,' come here." Recently, the School of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture of Wuhan Institute of Biological Engineering launched a public welfare action to protect the ecological environment, and teachers and students of the school tracked the "Canadian yellow flowers" scattered on and off campus, found more than 20 plants, and all of them were eradicated.
Chu Shihai, an associate researcher at the Institute of Plant Protection and Soil Fertilizer of Hubei Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told reporters that "Canada's yellow flower" is a plant from the North American Asteraceae family, which has strong fecundity, fast propagation speed, strong ecological adaptability, and currently has no natural enemy restrictions in China, and can produce chemical pertusory substances, inhibit the growth of other plants, and soon can form a single population, which can be described as "I kill a hundred flowers after flowering." According to some data, the invasion of "Canada's yellow flower" has caused the disappearance of more than 30 indigenous species in Shanghai.
According to Liu Shengxiang, a botany expert at Central China Normal University, "a yellow flower in Canada" is not only harmful to Wuhan in Hubei Province, but also distributed in Jingzhou, Xiangyang, Huanggang and other places, and the momentum of spread in recent years is obvious. Recently, he learned that traces of "a Canadian yellow flower" were also found in Shiyan, which has no distribution record.
There are also red fire ants, which are quarantine pests in China's agriculture, forestry and inbound plants, and are also recognized as one of the 100 most dangerous invasive species in the world. According to monitoring data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs at the beginning of the year, red fire ants have spread to 12 provinces across the country.
Tan Daochao, head of the plant quarantine section of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Plant Protection Station, said that after the red fire ant invades a new site, it can quickly develop into a dominant population and destroy the original ecological structure. Red fire ants can directly eat the seeds, fruits, young shoots, etc. of crops, resulting in reduced crop yields and affecting the growth and reproduction of some animals. At the same time, incidents of red fire ants injuring people also occur from time to time.
The grassland moth is also one of the invasive diseases and pests facing China in recent years. This insect has a preference for corn and can nibble on more than 80 crops. Within a year of invading China, it spread to more than 20 provinces, affecting the safety of tens of millions of acres of crops.
"After the discovery of the grassland night moth in Hechi, Guangxi in March 2019, it harmed 100 counties and districts in 14 prefecture-level cities in Guangxi that year, affecting 2.15 million mu of crops." Wang Huasheng, an extension researcher at the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Plant Protection Station, said that in addition to the main damage to corn, the affected crops include sugarcane, peanuts, rice and so on.
Pine wood nematode disease is a plant disease with pine ink cattle as the vector of transmission, which can cause the death of infected pine trees, known as the "cancer" of pine trees. According to an announcement issued by the State Forestry and Grassland Administration in March this year, pine wood nematode disease has spread rapidly to 17 provinces across the country. The reporter learned that more than 30 century-old pine trees in Guiping City, Guangxi Province, died of pine wood nematode disease.
"Luring wolves into the house" for profit Human factors exacerbate the spread of invasive organisms
China's relevant departments have always attached great importance to the management of the invasion of alien species, but due to the weakness of some grass-roots prevention and control systems, there are loopholes in the supervision of epidemic-related products, and the treatment effect is often not as good as expected.
The reporter's investigation found that it is difficult to deal with related problems. On the one hand, the rise of cross-border e-commerce and the international express delivery industry has diversified the invasion channels of alien species; on the other hand, some alien species can be used for profit, so artificial breeding has also appeared in some places, which has intensified the spread of transmission.
Rust-colored palm elephants are high-risk quarantine pests from outside and have now invaded Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and other provinces. It is such a high-risk alien species, but it is used by some farmers as a "bamboo worm" with high nutritional value for large-scale artificial breeding and marketing.
The reporter learned from the Forestry Bureau of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region that in 2021, a total of 1,095 rust-colored palm elephant farmers were found in Guangxi, involving 82 counties and districts in 13 cities, and the survey stock reached 33.6322 million. At present, the relevant departments in Guangxi have disposed of the artificially farmed rust-colored palm elephants.
In the rust-colored palm elephant breeding industry chain, farmers, cooperatives, and enterprises are involved. Some farmers do not even know that this is a quarantine pest before farming. And some farmers, even if they understand it, are still desperately taking risks under the temptation of high profits. A farmer in Nanning Told Reporters: "A pound of larvae is about 40 yuan or 50 yuan, and the cost of breeding is a few yuan." ”
The Phytosanitary Regulations and other norms stipulate that pine trees classified in the pine wood nematode disease epidemic area are prohibited from being cut down and sold. Once infected wood enters the market, it will become one of the sources of pine wood nematode disease transmission. However, the reporter found that in Guiping City, one of the epidemic areas in Guangxi, since the beginning of this year, 25 cases of indiscriminate logging and logging of pine trees have been filed, 14 people have been criminally prosecuted, and 2 enterprises have been cracked down on illegal processing of diseased wood.
In addition, Shi Kun, a professor at the Wildlife Research Institute of Beijing Forestry University, reminded that the current "climbing pet" and "exotic pet" business in various places is hot, and the risk is not small. Invasive alien species such as the Brazilian turtle that are "rampant" such as abandoned, "released", and escaped will bring huge security risks to China's native biological population and public health epidemic prevention.
Strengthen civil air defense technical defense Establish coordinated prevention and control, cut off the chain of transmission
In response to the problem of invasive alien species, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and other five ministries and commissions issued the "Work Plan for Further Strengthening the Prevention and Control of Invasive Alien Species" at the beginning of this year, which clearly requires that by 2025, the status of invasive alien species will be basically clarified, the legal and policy systems will be basically sound, the work pattern of joint prevention and control and group prevention and group governance will be basically formed, and the trend of the spread of major harmful invasive species and the risk of invasion will be effectively curbed.
Increase the construction of a team of specialized talents. The reporter found that many grass-roots animal and plant disease prevention and control departments reflected that the unit lacked "young blood" and the technical personnel were "stretched to the limit". Huang Weijian, deputy director of the Institute of Animal Disease Prevention and Control of the College of Animal Science and Technology of Guangxi University, believes that it is necessary to consolidate the grass-roots civil air defense capabilities, improve the construction of the human strength monitoring network for alien species and animal disease patients, and ensure that there are sufficient and professional manpower.
Use technical means to improve the monitoring and early warning network of "early detection, early warning, and early response". At present, some forestry pest monitoring work mainly relies on manual field inspection, and it is difficult to effectively survey in steep slopes and dense woodland areas in mountainous areas. Wang Huasheng and other experts suggested that we should make full use of the advantages of modern scientific and technological networks, pay close attention to key areas and key periods, highlight key species, and use "air- space-earth" integration and intelligent technologies and means for monitoring and testing.
Establish and improve a multi-sectoral coordination mechanism, strengthen the inspection and quarantine of logistics links, and block the "channel" for the spread of invasive alien species. Chu Shihai believes that the prevention and control of invasive alien species is by no means a department or a local matter, and it is necessary to establish the idea of "one game of chess" from the height of national security, promote the coordination of ministries and commissions, inter-provincial linkage, conduct a comprehensive investigation of invasive alien species, increase the guarantee of prevention and control funds, and ensure the normal and long-term effectiveness of prevention and control work.
Liu Jie'en, director of the Forestry Pest Prevention and Quarantine Station in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, suggested that while guarding the "national gate", the relevant departments should coordinate with other regulatory departments to make concerted efforts online and offline to prevent the spread of exotic quarantine diseases and insect pests through modern logistics systems such as online shopping and containers, strengthen spot checks and tests in logistics links, and prevent foreign harmful species from catching the "express train" of the modern transportation system.
Source: Xinhua Net