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Darwin Hosts International Fruit Fly Workshop
27 March 2005
Internationally respected fruit fly expert, Griffith University’s Professor Dick Drew and staff will present a workshop in Darwin from 27 to 31 March aimed at building knowledge of fruit fly identification and taxonomy in the Top End and neighbouring countries.
While Australia has around one hundred species of tropical fruit flies, there are more than one thousand species known around the world, a number of them far more damaging to important food crops than the ones we have here.
Australia’s neighbours, Indonesia, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea, struggle with two particularly damaging species, the Asian papaya fruit fly and the melon fly.
Eighteen entomologists from Indonesia and two from East Timor have received sponsorship from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) to attend the workshop, which will be held at the AQIS offices in Darwin.
AQIS’s Northern Australia Quarantine Strategy (NAQS) entomologists from Darwin, Broome and Mareeba, and a Northern Territory Department of Primary Industry, Fisheries and Mines entomologist will also attend the course.
Through projects conducted in partnership with ACIAR, a number of major fruit fly pest species have been identified close to Australia’s northern borders.
NAQS runs a fruit fly trapping program across northern Australia to provide early warning of exotic species. In Torres Strait (in collaboration with the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries) a containment strategy is in place to prevent the establishment of exotic species, which turn up regularly during the monsoon season. A number of exotic insects are capable of travelling the relatively short distances from neighbouring countries to northern Australia on monsoon winds.
Increased capacity to identify fruit flies in the region plays an important part in keeping Australia free of exotic pests and in maintaining Australia’s pest-free export status, which is worth millions of dollars in export income to our farmers.
Media contact: Kay Carvan 8920 7099 – 0408 681 108 or: Glenn Bellis 0417 271 324
Internationally respected fruit fly expert, Griffith University’s Professor Dick Drew and staff will present a workshop in Darwin from 27 to 31 March aimed at building knowledge of fruit fly identification and taxonomy in the Top End and neighbouring countries.
While Australia has around one hundred species of tropical fruit flies, there are more than one thousand species known around the world, a number of them far more damaging to important food crops than the ones we have here.
Australia’s neighbours, Indonesia, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea, struggle with two particularly damaging species, the Asian papaya fruit fly and the melon fly.
Eighteen entomologists from Indonesia and two from East Timor have received sponsorship from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) to attend the workshop, which will be held at the AQIS offices in Darwin.
AQIS’s Northern Australia Quarantine Strategy (NAQS) entomologists from Darwin, Broome and Mareeba, and a Northern Territory Department of Primary Industry, Fisheries and Mines entomologist will also attend the course.
Through projects conducted in partnership with ACIAR, a number of major fruit fly pest species have been identified close to Australia’s northern borders.
NAQS runs a fruit fly trapping program across northern Australia to provide early warning of exotic species. In Torres Strait (in collaboration with the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries) a containment strategy is in place to prevent the establishment of exotic species, which turn up regularly during the monsoon season. A number of exotic insects are capable of travelling the relatively short distances from neighbouring countries to northern Australia on monsoon winds.
Increased capacity to identify fruit flies in the region plays an important part in keeping Australia free of exotic pests and in maintaining Australia’s pest-free export status, which is worth millions of dollars in export income to our farmers.
Media contact: Kay Carvan 8920 7099 – 0408 681 108 or: Glenn Bellis 0417 271 324