Variation in Inspection Efficacy by Member States of Wood Packaging Material Entering the European Union.

The use of wood packaging materials (WPMs) in international trade is recognized as a pathway for the movement of invasive pests and as the origin of most introductions of Asian longhorned beetle, Anoplophora glabripennis (Motschulsky) (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) in Europe and North America. Following several pest interceptions on WPM associated with stone imports from China, the European Union (EU) agreed to survey certain categories of imports based on the EU Combined Nomenclature Codes for imports, which are based on the international Harmonized System. Between April 2013 and March 2015, 72,263 relevant consignments were received from China in the EU and 26,008 were inspected. Harmful organisms were detected in 0.9% of the consignments, and 1.1% of the imports did not have markings compliant with the international standard for treating WPM, ISPM 15. There were significant differences between the detection rates of harmful organisms among EU member states. In member states that inspected at least 500 consignments, the rate of detection ranged from 6.9% in Austria and France to 0.0% in Spain and Poland. If this difference in detection rate is the result of differences in the methods and intensity of inspection in different member states then an approximate sevenfold increase in the interception of harmful organisms may be achieved if all states were to achieve detection rates achieved by Austria and France. The EU data from 1999 to 2014 indicated an increasing number of interceptions of Bostrichidae and Cerambycidae since 2010. This study demonstrates that there is an ongoing threat of non-native forest pests being imported on WPM.

Control of origin of larch wood: discrimination between European (Austrian) and Siberian origin by stable isotope analysis.

Most of the coniferous wood of non-European origin that is imported into the European Union (EU) has to be inspected phytosanitarily, to prevent the introduction and spread of harmful pests in EU territory. Wood importers have been caught declaring Siberian larch wood as being of European origin to save the costs of the inspection. Therefore, an unequivocal method has to be developed in addition to the traditional analysis of the tree ring density to identify incorrect declarations of larch wood origin. For this purpose, delta18O and delta13C analyses have been carried out to check if Siberian larch wood can be discriminated from European larch. Measurements have been carried out on bulk wood samples, as the method has to be designed to be as simple as possible. The results show an overlapping of the Siberian and Austrian delta13C, and no overlapping for the delta18O values.