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United Fresh News > Queensland Fruit Fly December Update

1 December 2015

Queensland Fruit Fly December Update

General Situation remains unchanged since the November update. 

  • No additional fruit flies have been detected since the November update
  • The last detection of an adult fruit fly was on 6 March
  • The last detection of larvae in fruit collected from the affected area was on 13 March
  • To date there have been 14 adult flies detected and 5 properties where fruit fly larvae have been found
  • Field operations and diagnostics (trapping, fruit collection and amnesty bins) in accordance with the Spring / Summer programme continues
  • Planning is well advanced for closure of the Queensland Fruit Fly (QFF) response (i.e. eradication declared and end movement controls on fruit and vegetables).  

 

Response closure 

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) will be announcing  response closure in the near future, if there are no further QFF finds.

This would mean that with effect from the official announcement the:

  • The Controlled Area Notice (CAN) will be lifted ending movement controls on fruit and vegetables
  • Export Restriction Zones (ERZ) will be removed for all markets except Korea:
    • QFF 2015 MPI Pre-approved procedures will not be required for all markets except Korea; and
    • Declaration under the Observations field in the ePhyto system will not be required for all markets except Korea.

Korea have recently requested to obtain MPIs confirmation of eradication before formally agreeing to remove the Additional Declarations (AD) for QFF host material being exported from New Zealand.  We hope this will be an administrative process that will likely not take too long after the announcement.    An update will be provided when the AD has been removed for Korea, until then the additional QFF requirements for Korea remain in place.  

The official lifting of the Control Area Notice will be published on the MPI website coinciding with the public announcement.

Prior to the public announcement, we will circulate the media release announcing response closure.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their cooperation during this response.