In December 2014 the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Aid Programme contracted Pacific Biosecurity to lead implementation of the Activity “Building resilience to biosecurity threats from invasive ants throughout the Pacific” over five years. This Activity completed at the end of 2019.

Our in-country partners were Tokelau EDNRE (Department of Economic Development, Natural Resources and Environment and Kiribati MELAD (Ministry of Environment, Land & Agricultural Development). Regional agency partners were the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) in Fiji, and Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) in Samoa. The New Zealand partners were Pacific Biosecurity (PB) in Wellington and Pacific Invasives Initiative (PII) in Auckland. We were also aided by many colleagues in the Pacific and beyond, with special thanks to Ray Pierce of Eco Oceania and Viv Van Dyk and her team at Bait Technology / Flybusters Consulting.

We delivered five outputs to contribute to our goal:
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1. Sustainability Plans for each partner to explicitly identify the constraints or barriers to the project goals extending past the life of the project, and with measures to mitigate or remove these barriers;
2. Development of a Pacific Invasive Ant Toolkit (PIAT) to provide a set of detailed resources to enable in-country officers to implement and undertake effective biosecurity processes and management of invasive ants;
3. Delivery of Workshops to provide training on use of the PIAT resources to in-country and regional organisation partners;
4. Development and implementation of a Management Plan for yellow crazy ant in Tokelau;
5. Development and implementation of a Management Plan for yellow crazy ant in Kiritimati, Kiribati, which will provide case studies for the PIAT.

UPDATES
January 2020: Unfortunately, two and a half years after last detection, we found a few yellow crazy ants in Kiritimati. Our local partners are monitoring the ants, and have the tools and resources to treat the ants if numbers increase. However, yellow crazy ant numbers in Tokelau remain at a manageable level.

March 2019: With our partners we appear to have eradicated yellow crazy ant in Kiritimati, Kiribati, which has not been detected for 2 years. We have sustained control of yellow crazy ant in Tokelau.

June 2018: We are four years into the Activity. As well as being on track for all our outputs, we have assisted other countries and organisations with advice, capacity-building, and resources, including SOP Manu in French Polynesia, and the Agriculture team in Tuvalu.
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