Debbie Sharp- Department of Environmental Affairs: Environmental Programmes

Working for Water, a Natural Resource Management programme of the Department of Environmental Affairs has funded the research into biological control agents over the past decade. The biological control implementation programme was initiated in the earliest in 2000 when the first implementation staff employed by the department.

She talked about biological agents released on monitoring the plants and their expenditures. There is a biological control team currently working in 4 provinces but the target is to have teams working in all 9 provinces.

The teams are giving useful information to get indication about where the insects are establishing and where the gaps are in the establishment.

They created bio control apps that they can be used to search what insects are and what bio control agents can be used in those insects.