Norwegians afraid of pests in Canadian wood chips

Samples of imported hardwood wood chips from North America show signs of insects, which according to The Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute could do great damage in the Norwegian woods.

Wood chip samples were taken from the first boatload of wood chips from Canada, which arrived in BioWood Norway AS pellet plant at Averøya in April 2010. The samples were sent for further analyses.

Analyses also revealed accidental mixing of softwood wood chips, which increases the risk of introducing pine nematode. Authorities are concerned about the new findings.

— Norway is considering a temporary ban on imports of hardwood wood chips from North America and other regions with similar risk, says section manager Peter Røyneberg from the Food Authority's headquarters.

From the Canadian chips there were no findings of live or dead individuals of the pine nematode or other dangerous forest pests. However, there are traces in chips that resembles marks beetle genus Agrilus. In this genus there are several serious forest pests, including A. planipennis (Emerald Ash Borer) and A. anxius (Bronze Birch Borer).

Unfortunately, there were findings of coniferous wood chips which are prohibited to import from countries where the pine nematode is known to occur, including Canada and the USA. A large proportion of single wood chips were large enough to contain various stages of insects such as Agrilus spp.

Forest and landscape has made calculations showing that sampling can not reveal whether a boat load contains dangerous pests if the volume is as large as in this case (about 40 000 tonnes). They therefore recommend no further testing of new boatloads.