Traveller declares biosecurity products to customs, shows them honey and gets a fine

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#2300662 16-Aug-2019 23:27

Fred99:

Geektastic: I'm sure someone can explain how a traveller eating honey on their morning toast affects bees.

In a few short words that they'll accept and believe - I kind of doubt it. One risk:

Source

In experiments carried out early in the 20th century, M. pluton was shown to survive for about 12
months in an incubator and at normal room and outdoor temperatures. In honey exposed to direct
sunlight the organism was destroyed after 3-4 hours, while in honey stored away from direct
sunlight the organism survived up to 7 months (White 1920).
In view of the above, M. pluton is classified as a potential hazard in imported honey.

TLDR. If you have some imported honey from a hive which was infected with EFB (european foul brood), then if a local bee eats any of that honey - quite likely as they're inclined to be attracted to honey, then they'll take that back to their hive, and you'll have introduced a new disease to NZ which would be destructive to our local industry.

Yes, I understand that the honey may contain things. It just seems a bit unlikely a bee will pop into a house, open the honey and eat it.

I wonder what they would say if you bought NZ honey back from overseas in sealed jars! ;-)

I'm not terribly likely to bring any myself (aside from knowing you aren't allowed to) as we currently have 28 beehives on the property, so honey is not something we tend to run short of as the keeper pays his 'rent' in honey and I would have to eat almost nothing else to stand much chance of getting through it all.

itxtme

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#2300698 17-Aug-2019 09:15

Geektastic:

Yes, I understand that the honey may contain things. It just seems a bit unlikely a bee will pop into a house, open the honey and eat it.

I wonder what they would say if you bought NZ honey back from overseas in sealed jars! ;-)

I think its very unlikely a bee would open your jar of honey, but equally if you ate your toast outside on a nice summer day then its not impossible that a bee could dig in, especially given you have admitted you have numerous hives in such close proximity to you. They take the bactecrium spores to their hive, and the rest is history.

As far as importing unless you brought it in from some specific Pacific Islands and followed the import procedure they [would] should take it off you.

Not suggesting Varroa mite was caused by honey consumption, but that is one example of how bee diseases damage industry, and that only made it to our shores in 2000.

edit: strike through doesnt work :\

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#2300855 17-Aug-2019 13:18

itxtme:

Geektastic:

Yes, I understand that the honey may contain things. It just seems a bit unlikely a bee will pop into a house, open the honey and eat it.

I wonder what they would say if you bought NZ honey back from overseas in sealed jars! ;-)

I think its very unlikely a bee would open your jar of honey, but equally if you ate your toast outside on a nice summer day then its not impossible that a bee could dig in, especially given you have admitted you have numerous hives in such close proximity to you. They take the bactecrium spores to their hive, and the rest is history.

As far as importing unless you brought it in from some specific Pacific Islands and followed the import procedure they [would] should take it off you.

Not suggesting Varroa mite was caused by honey consumption, but that is one example of how bee diseases damage industry, and that only made it to our shores in 2000.

edit: strike through doesnt work :\

These diseases can be odd. Growing up in the UK in the 70's, rabies from France and the continent was a big threat - 'La Rage' poseters where all over the ferry and hovercraft terminals etc. and importing live dogs and cats had huge quarantine requirements. One of the issues when the Channel Tunnel was built was how to stop mammals with rabies using it.

Now, dogs have pet passports, no quarantine, and thousands cross the channel on holiday with their owners every week. It's an interesting example of how something can go from a serious threat to almost no threat (I don't believe a single case of rabies has ever been found in the UK even after the channel tunnel was built etc.) Indeed, my brother in law is currently in Germany in his camper van with his cocker spaniel having a whale of a time by all accounts.

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#2300879 17-Aug-2019 13:42

Bung: Maybe it could be the form of questioning. If the product that she had contained honey as an ingredient that is not the same as a jar of honey. She apparently declared the herbal remedy and produced it but MPI expected her to have already declared the honey in it.

If you are unsure you tick all the boxes that you think apply to you then when you present yourself to a MPI person then they should ask to see all that you have, it's called "Cover Thy Arse" and it means you arn't trying to hide something and it means if they are doing their job correctly your bags should also get x-rayed

Fred99

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#2300904 17-Aug-2019 15:27

Geektastic:

These diseases can be odd. Growing up in the UK in the 70's, rabies from France and the continent was a big threat - 'La Rage' poseters where all over the ferry and hovercraft terminals etc. and importing live dogs and cats had huge quarantine requirements. One of the issues when the Channel Tunnel was built was how to stop mammals with rabies using it.

Now, dogs have pet passports, no quarantine, and thousands cross the channel on holiday with their owners every week. It's an interesting example of how something can go from a serious threat to almost no threat (I don't believe a single case of rabies has ever been found in the UK even after the channel tunnel was built etc.) Indeed, my brother in law is currently in Germany in his camper van with his cocker spaniel having a whale of a time by all accounts.

Western Europe is also considered to be rabies-free. The UK has policies and plans in place to deal with an outbreak, culling feral animals (ie foxes) restricting movement etc of domestic animals if there was to be an outbreak. So it's a calculated risk - that it's unlikely to arrive and with high level of confidence that if it did, then it could be contained. You can't legally bring a dog from a country where rabies is endemic to the UK or rabies-free western europe. There have been isolated cases of rabies where people have smuggled dogs from Africa etc.

If European Foul Brood was inadvertently introduced to NZ, by a means that's been known to be able to transmit the disease for about a century (honey), then it would be almost impossible to prevent spread of it, and it would very likely have a high economic cost to the industry. And there's a very high risk that it could be introduced from smuggled honey as it is present almost everywhere else in the world where it's been looked for, and probably present most of the rest of the world where the industry is either too small to bother to look, or so lacking in infrastructure and with so many other issues, they've got bigger fish to fry.

Seeing as the thread has devolved to presenting / refuting extremely odd concepts, I may as well add a link to this article on Stuff:

Man illegally imported hundreds of heritage seeds, plants to 'protect NZ's food security

He had been motivated by a genuine concern that plant diversity and purity in New Zealand was endangered by genetic engineering and genetic modification of species.

Geektastic

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#2301065 17-Aug-2019 23:51

Fred99:

Geektastic:

These diseases can be odd. Growing up in the UK in the 70's, rabies from France and the continent was a big threat - 'La Rage' poseters where all over the ferry and hovercraft terminals etc. and importing live dogs and cats had huge quarantine requirements. One of the issues when the Channel Tunnel was built was how to stop mammals with rabies using it.

Now, dogs have pet passports, no quarantine, and thousands cross the channel on holiday with their owners every week. It's an interesting example of how something can go from a serious threat to almost no threat (I don't believe a single case of rabies has ever been found in the UK even after the channel tunnel was built etc.) Indeed, my brother in law is currently in Germany in his camper van with his cocker spaniel having a whale of a time by all accounts.

Western Europe is also considered to be rabies-free. The UK has policies and plans in place to deal with an outbreak, culling feral animals (ie foxes) restricting movement etc of domestic animals if there was to be an outbreak. So it's a calculated risk - that it's unlikely to arrive and with high level of confidence that if it did, then it could be contained. You can't legally bring a dog from a country where rabies is endemic to the UK or rabies-free western europe. There have been isolated cases of rabies where people have smuggled dogs from Africa etc.

If European Foul Brood was inadvertently introduced to NZ, by a means that's been known to be able to transmit the disease for about a century (honey), then it would be almost impossible to prevent spread of it, and it would very likely have a high economic cost to the industry. And there's a very high risk that it could be introduced from smuggled honey as it is present almost everywhere else in the world where it's been looked for, and probably present most of the rest of the world where the industry is either too small to bother to look, or so lacking in infrastructure and with so many other issues, they've got bigger fish to fry.

Seeing as the thread has devolved to presenting / refuting extremely odd concepts, I may as well add a link to this article on Stuff:

Man illegally imported hundreds of heritage seeds, plants to 'protect NZ's food security

He had been motivated by a genuine concern that plant diversity and purity in New Zealand was endangered by genetic engineering and genetic modification of species.

Odd when you think how reliant NZ is on thousands of plants that you now couldn't bring here..!

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#2301066 17-Aug-2019 23:53

networkn:

I have found Customs to be a law unto themselves, and it really feels they go out of their way to hire the grumpiest least understanding people around. I do want them to be very protective of our environment, it's a pretty delicate eco system we have, however I believe you can still do an excellent job AND be pleasant and understanding. I recall an incident at 1:30am on a flight back from Australia with two young kids, where my son had eaten a banana on the plane, and then "kept a little bit for later" unbeknownst to us. We declared everything we knew about but not the fresh fruit. They kept up there for 2 hours, insisting our kids be totally still sitting on seats and were very rude when we wanted to take them to the bathrooms (initially refusing until I mentioned that a puddle of pee was less desireable. We were ignored except for that for over an hour, then a woman came over threatening us with fines, acting like we had intentionally planned it out, confronted my son without warning which instantly made him cry. At that point I had well and truly enough, stepped between her and my son and firmly and politely insisted she stop speaking to us and bring a supervisor over. 25 minutes later a supervisor came over and took one look at the form the issue apologized profusely and let us go.

Yes I acknowledge our son did bring fresh fruit into the country, and we unintentionally made an error on our declaration, but there are ways to handle this.

Actually, customs don't give a toss about the environment. Biosecurity is handled by the Ministry of Primary Industries. And they are a law unto themselves.

Geektastic:

These diseases can be odd. Growing up in the UK in the 70's, rabies from France and the continent was a big threat - 'La Rage' poseters where all over the ferry and hovercraft terminals etc. and importing live dogs and cats had huge quarantine requirements. One of the issues when the Channel Tunnel was built was how to stop mammals with rabies using it.

Now, dogs have pet passports, no quarantine, and thousands cross the channel on holiday with their owners every week. It's an interesting example of how something can go from a serious threat to almost no threat (I don't believe a single case of rabies has ever been found in the UK even after the channel tunnel was built etc.) Indeed, my brother in law is currently in Germany in his camper van with his cocker spaniel having a whale of a time by all accounts.

Yes, and yet crossing the border into South Australia from Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales or Victoria, you are required to dispose of all fruit or face a fine of $375. As a result, South Australia rarely ever sees instances of Queensland Fruit Fly, a pest that universally results in a massive mobilisation and quarantine operation wherever it turns up (and the reason Australia dragged New Zealand to the World Trade Organisation over a ban on Aussie Apples) - just ask MPI.

Fred99

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#2301094 18-Aug-2019 08:42

Geektastic:

Odd when you think how reliant NZ is on thousands of plants that you now couldn't bring here..!

Not true. New species can be brought in.

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#2301512 19-Aug-2019 09:41

dejadeadnz:

It's beyond me why people want to get into wild speculations about this based on a "He said; she said" article. Generally speaking, I'll accept that the person is genuinely aggrieved from her perspective. Beyond that, there's no way that anyone has any kind of solid evidence to draw any kind of substantive conclusion and the unwarranted slights at Customs people at large or the above insinuation that the person was somehow (likely) to be lying or obnoxious are both equally unfair. "I travelled x times and nothing ever happened to me! Therefore, I will take a shot at someone's character!" is as unworthy of being taken seriously as "I went outside and it rained; therefore, I caused the rain!"

Gossip and innuendo on GZ? Never!

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#2301611 19-Aug-2019 11:43

Maybe it's better to have someone overseas post you the honey than bring it yourself. That way it's up to customs to find and reject it and you avoid any chance of a fine if you do not say you requested it be sent. We once had a pot of honey returned to the sender that was sent as a gift though we had to pay return postage.

On our last overseas trip we were given a pot of peanut butter as a gift because the brand name was similar to my wife's name. I wonder if it would have been allowed into the country? We ended up eating some and throwing the rest away.

Oh no, not another end of the world prediction

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#2301625 19-Aug-2019 12:03

geek4me:

Maybe it's better to have someone overseas post you the honey than bring it yourself. That way it's up to customs to find and reject it and you avoid any chance of a fine if you do not say you requested it be sent. We once had a pot of honey returned to the sender that was sent as a gift though we had to pay return postage.

On our last overseas trip we were given a pot of peanut butter as a gift because the brand name was similar to my wife's name. I wonder if it would have been allowed into the country? We ended up eating some and throwing the rest away.

Maybe it's better if people don't try to get prohibited items into New Zealand.

Sometimes I use big words I don't always fully understand in an effort to make myself sound more photosynthesis.

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#2301634 19-Aug-2019 12:28

floydbloke:

Maybe it's better if people don't try to get prohibited items into New Zealand.

Sure, except it's not always clear what is or is not prohibited; see "Salty buys Turkish tea" above.

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#2301690 19-Aug-2019 13:03

There is an MPI page ddaling with Teas that specifically excludes any containing citrus leaf or peel. Interestingly you are allowed a limited amount of tea containing honey powder (1 box (50 servings), if it contains honey powder.)

There are variations on how excluded items are described on different MPI documents/web pages.
In a web page aimed at Indian travellers honey is dealt with like this

"honey and honey products (including cosmetics, health supplements, and medicines)"

IMHO that is the wording that should have been on the entry card.

kiwiharry

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#2352580 13-Nov-2019 07:18

MPI have withdrawn the fine imposed on this traveller and have refunded her the money.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/117273548/mpi-backs-down-over-fine-for-honey-declared-on-boarding-card

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#2352586 13-Nov-2019 07:44

kiwiharry:

MPI have withdrawn the fine imposed on this traveller and have refunded her the money.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/117273548/mpi-backs-down-over-fine-for-honey-declared-on-boarding-card

thanks for the update.

i maintain that if you declare it, you have met your legal requirements and should not be fined.

unless there was evidence of the conversation that took place which may suggest otherwise - and the onus should be on MPI to produce that evidence.

but then again i'm no lawyer and the law to lawyers is not the same law that you and I interpret it to be!

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