Pest categorisation

Category

Description

Funding share

Very high public impact

• cause major environmental damage to natural ecosystems; and/or
• potentially affect human health or cause a major nuisance to humans; and/or
• cause significant damage to amenity flora; and
• have relatively little impact on commercial crops.

This category also covers situations where the pest has a very wide range of hosts including native flora and there is considerable uncertainty as to the relative impacts on the different crops. In short, it is almost impossible to properly determine which industries benefit from eradication and to what extent, and in any case, the incursion primarily affects native flora and/or amenity plants, and/or is a major nuisance if not a health risk to humans.

High public impact

• cause significant public losses either directly through serious loss of amenity and/or environmental values and/or effects on households or indirectly through very severe economic impacts on regions and the national economy, through large trade losses with flow on effects through the economy; and
• also impose major costs on the industries concerned so that these industries would significantly benefit from eradication.

Moderate public impact

• primarily harm the industries concerned but there would also be some significant public costs as well (that is, moderate public benefits from eradication). In this case the pest could adversely affect public amenities, households or the environment, and/or could have significant, though moderate trade implications and/or national and regional economic implications.

Mostly if not wholly private impact

• have little or no public cost implications and little or no impacts on natural ecosystems. The affected commercial industries would be adversely affected primarily through additional costs of production, through extra control costs or nuisance costs; and
• generally there would be no significant trade issues that would affect national and regional economies.