Bio-security: FG advised to implement policies on re-emerging invasive insect pests

Visiting assistant professor at the D.B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, USA, Dr Bridget Aito-Bobadoye, has advised the federal government to implement policies on re-emerging invasive pests in Nigeria.

Speaking with journalists in Ilorin on Friday, Aito-Bobadoye also called on African countries to implement a harmonised biosecurity act.

The don, who urged the 54 African nations to adopt new regulatory frameworks on biosecurity policies, said that such a way is where forests in Africa can be safeguarded to prevent the proliferation of invasive insect pests, which can negatively impact forest ecosystems.

She observed that developing a national biosecurity framework will scale up preparedness against sporadic insect pest outbreaks within Nigeria’s borders.

The expert described biosecurity as the prevention of disease-causing agents entering or leaving any place where they can pose a risk to farm animals, humans, or the safety and quality of a food product.

Aito-Bobadoye, who is also a principal research fellow at the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria, emphasised the need to ensure that emerging or re-emerging invasive insect pests and pathogens are stopped before entering borders, new forest ecosystems, or countries.

“This will help protect human, animal, and environmental health and secure food safety.

“Forests in Africa are becoming fragmented at an alarming rate, and this is causing huge ecological imbalances.

“Insect pest invasions and outbreaks are becoming more frequent with more severity, which is exacerbated by climate change,” she said.

The don pointed out that this has led to an increase in biosecurity threats, which come in various forms, such as insect pests and infectious pathogens.

She added that this could endanger food security, impact human or animal health, and even cripple national economies.

Aito-Bobadoye said that Nigeria has extremely porous borders, which she said makes surveillance and detection of biosecurity threats extremely challenging.

This, she said, is because the movements of goods such as unprocessed wood products, firewood, and lumber through popular trade routes are unregulated.

The don noted, however, that most African countries have weak regulatory policies that can stop the proliferation of these insect pests and pathogens within and outside their borders.

She insists that a regional biosecurity act seems to be the solution to implementing emergency pest response programs across the continent.

“This act will support existing frameworks relating to the importing, exporting, and internal control of animals, and plants that could vector pests and pathogens to prevent and manage biosecurity risks.”

She explained further that measures to counter biosecurity risks should include compulsory terms of quarantine to minimise the risk of invasive pests or diseases arriving into or departing from Africa’s borders to other countries.

Aito-Bobadoye enjoined African countries to comply with the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols, an international agreement managing the movement of living-modified organisms from one country to another.

Similarly, the expert disclosed that her research focuses on studying the ecology of a highly damaging insect, cerambycid pests, such as the long-horned beetle Anoplophora glabripennis, which has invaded and ravaged forests across several continents worldwide.

She, therefore, called for collaboration between immigration services across each country’s border and forest departments, especially phytosanitary commissions, to stop the proliferation of invasive insect pests from local forests to global forests.

“Policymakers need to amend and adopt new animal acts which should ensure that national frameworks are Nagoya and Cartagena compliant.

“This will help to establish regulatory guidelines that limit the transport of unprocessed wood products and plants that could vector these insect pests across borders,” she said.

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