Pest Risk Analysis And Invasive Species - English

Pest effects on plants can have an impact on everyone without them actually realizing it. Pests and diseases, pathogens that harm plants, can cause significant losses to food crops, lowering the amount of food that people have to eat, so really, it's of concern to everyone. And then, where food isn't necessarily threatened, you have pests and diseases that harm plants in the wider environment. We all like to like to walk in the countryside, and enjoy walking through forests and the woodland and if that is harmed and threatened by organisms that can kill trees the environment is degraded. And we all lose something. You know, something is lost to us. Invasive species are a very important issue because they are playing havoc with our agriculture and also with biodiversity. So they have impact both on production and on the environment. In terms of impact on agriculture, it has been estimated there's about a three trillion dollar loss every year globally because of invasive species. This is again, a very conservative estimate. So, the damage pests could do would be killing plants, really completely killing a tree or something, but it could also do cosmetic damage like making fruits looking very ugly or it could also just start the beginning of an infestation with another organism, for example, fungi, etc. So these are some kinds of damages. We've had cases in the past of pests being introduced into the country and, at least from an agricultural perspective, we generally lose market opportunities. In terms of natural areas, we've had cases in the past. We had a case in the early '90swith the introduction of pine beetle that pretty much devastated the natural pinein the mountain areas and it was not just the destruction of a pristine ecosystem but as well, it put at risk the watershed that feeds the whole country with fresh water for commercial, industrial, and agricultural use. I believe that all countries have experienced the consequences of pests. The public sector has had to spend large amounts of money on official control and the private sector suffers with lower yields, and complications associated with markets. So I think a pest risk analysis, that is well done, is a tool for effectively focusing on the risks. It is widely beneficial to countries. It's also beneficial in terms of the scarce resources of the public sector and also for the private sector that wants to do business in a safe environment.