00:00These trees are densely featured in other cities.
00:04If you look at the tree canopy cover across Sydney and Brisbane, figs are a much bigger
00:09feature than they are here.
00:10Look at the coverage of plane trees in Melbourne.
00:13If we lose all of those, those cities will be very different places.
00:18The beetle has already caused billions of dollars of destruction in South Africa, North
00:24America and Israel, ripping through avocado, macadamia and mango trees.
00:30Back home, if the pest escapes its quarantine zone in Perth, it's unclear how it could
00:36affect the rest of the country.
00:38The problem is, is we don't know how much impact the beetle could have, both in terms
00:42of social, environmental and economic impacts.
00:45And until you actually quantify that, it's really hard to justify how much to spend on
00:51an eradication program.
00:54The current price tag is $41 million to eradicate the beetle the only proven way, by chopping
01:02or pruning infected trees.
01:05At the moment, there have been no effective chemical treatments found anywhere in the
01:09world.
01:10But scientists, part of an advisory group, say there's a range of unexplored possibilities,
01:15Not only to kill shot hole borer, but slow its spread, as the pest enters what some experts
01:21predict will be an explosive phase in the warmer months.
01:26So we've tested well under 1% of the full range of products, several biocontrol options
01:33that are effective against a wide range of beetle species, which are available in Australia
01:38now and nobody has tested those options.
01:41But they're worried their advice is not being heard, and say WA's Department of Primary
01:45Industries, known as DPIRD, is being too secretive at such a critical time.
01:52I know DPIRD is doing a little bit of research, but they're not telling us what they're doing.
01:57They give us little snippets, but we don't know the fullest extent.
02:01We all need to be digging in.
02:02The impact for not achieving success in this space is too great to walk away from.
02:08A race against the clock to eradicate this tiny pest with a massive impact.
Comments