Biodiversity Information Science and Standards : Conference Abstract
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Conference Abstract
ALERT Lessons From A Biosecurity Disaster
expand article infoGill Brown‡, Peter Jobson§, Josephine Milne|, Ines Schönberger
‡ Queensland Herbarium, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
§ Northern Territory Herbarium, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
| Royal Botanic Gardens of Victoria, South Yarra, VIC, Australia
¶ Allan Herbarium and Plant Identification Service, Lincoln, New Zealand
Corresponding author: Gill Brown (gillian.brown@des.qld.gov.au), Peter Jobson (peter.jobson@nt.gov.au), Josephine Milne (pina.milne@rbg.vic.gov.au), Ines Schönberger (schonbergeri@landcareresearch.co.nz)
Received: 18 Apr 2018 | Published: 15 Jun 2018
© 2018 Gill Brown, Peter Jobson, Josephine Milne, Ines Schönberger
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Brown G, Jobson P, Milne J, Schönberger I (2018) ALERT Lessons From A Biosecurity Disaster. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 2: e25941. https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.2.25941
Open Access

Abstract

The Managers of Australasian Herbarium Collections (MAHC) have been working with the Plant Import Operations Branch of the Australian government Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR) to align our procedures to significantly reduce the risk of herbarium specimens being destroyed when being imported into Australia. The two groups worked together productively to bring about change and to enable the resumption of the international movement of herbarium specimens after two recent international disasters. These changes include amendments to the Biosecurity Import Conditions System (BICON) which contains the Australian government’s import conditions and onshore outcomes for herbarium specimens, changes to procedures at the border (airmail gateway facilities) where biosecurity documentation is assessed and parcels released, and updates to existing herbarium parcel labels, guidelines and supplier declaration templates. We will discuss lessons learned, as well as implications for researchers, collections managers or institutions who may be sending herbarium specimen material to Australia.

This is a presentation on beahlf of the Managers of Australasian Herbarium Collections (MAHC), a network of herbarium Collection Managers in Australia and New Zealand.

Keywords

Biosecurity, Loans, Exchange, Disaster Management, Risk Assessment, Labels, Templates

Presenting author

Gill Brown or Josephine Milne

Presented at

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) 2018 meeting in Dunedin, New Zealand.

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