Environment

Coping with the aftershocks of our arrival: Biosecurity and the history - and future - of New Zealand

Most New Zealanders have grown up with the idea of unwanted biological invaders. But for many years public imagination was fixed on a small number of villains. When I was a child, foot and mouth disease was the apocalypse that waited in the wings. As our economy has diversified, the range of potential scourges has multiplied with it - fruit fly for the horticulturists, gypsy moth for the forest sector. Full text