Canada has a proposed expansion of its EAB wood product quarantine zone. But is that good, or bad?
Here's the problem in a nutshell; when you create a quarantine zone, you are saying that people can't move stuff out of that area. But they are allowed to move things around within the area. So you must balance the risks within the area, to the risks presented outside of the area.
Well, this brings up a problem. If the quarantine area is too small, it might miss some unknown infestations that are nearby. So to avoid that, you might want to make your quarantine area bigger. Well, then, you are exposing the parts within that bigger area to possible internal movement of materials... parts that maybe would have remained pest-free if the quarantine was more tightly tailored to the known infestation.
It is tricky. The reason that it took me a week to blog about this article is because I was pondering it. I feel like I really get it now. So here is the article so you can see the problem yourself; Ottawa plan to fight pest panned, a brief discussion of how the outline of a quarantine can protect some places, while putting others at risk.
Naturally, if nobody ever moved any wood products at all, none of this would be an issue. Regardless of quarantine status where you live, the underlying message is really that unprocessed wood shouldn't be moved more than a short distance.
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