USDA Bans Fake Xmas Trees From China, Cites Pests
Date: 28-Feb-05
Country: USA
The ban begins April 1.
USDA will also suspend imports of craft items from China that contain wooden logs, limbs, branches or twigs greater than 1 centimeter in diameter and have intact bark.
The department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said it was "increasingly concerned about the introduction of wood-boring quarantine pests into the United States from China through decorative and craft items."
The ban will remain until Chinese exporters adopt "adequate mitigation measures," it said.
The primary insects of concern are the brown fir longhorn beetle and the Japanese cedar longhorn beetle.
Both are relatives of the Asian longhorn beetle, which flies long distances and eats into hardwood trees. Federal officials are eradicating the pests in New York City and Chicago.
Last month, USDA announced its fourth recall in six months of wooden decorative items imported from China after brown fir longhorn beetles were found in a shipment of fake Christmas trees.