Tenerife News - Tenerife palms face red beetle menace





Remember the bad old days of Dutch elm disease and the havoc it wrought on the British landscape? Well, there are fears that a similar ecological disaster could befall the archipelago's palm trees, thanks to another imported insect, the red palm weevil, a bug which is already getting its teeth into trees in Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria.

It is thought the first of these weevils arrived in a shipment of ornamental palms and Tenerife environmentalists and horticulturalists have been nervously monitoring the evolution of this alien invasion ever since.

The agricultural association ASAGA decided to step in last week and demand that 250 palm trees from the Spanish mainland, which might well be carriers of what is known here as the picudo rojo, be refused entry to Santa Cruz port where, on the morning of January 24, they were to be off-loaded, just hours before a ministerial ban was scheduled to come into force.

Meanwhile fears for the survival of palms in the islands already affected are growing. The weevil appears to thrive in the Canary climate and has a phenomenal capacity to spread. Twenty new cases were declared in a period of four weeks in Fuerteventura where fifty cases had already been officially declared. A further two hundred trees are under suspicion of harbouring the insects and every passing day brings new reports of sightings.

The regional government has banned the pruning of palms throughout the islands but the prohibition is being widely disregarded, even by municipal workers. Experts are blaming the fashion for drastic pruning (and in particular cutting off green palm branches) for the rapid propagation of the insect in the Canaries.


Red Palm Weevil

The weevils are especially attracted by the sap of pruned palms. They burrow in and lay eggs in the crown. The larvae then work their way through the entire tree which dies within two years. In an age of hi-tech advances, the accepted means of combating the insect seems primitive and drastic: felling and burning.

Already environment officials are describing the situation as "an ecological catastrophe without precedent".

Experts are angry at the way the situation has been handled. Despite years of forewarning and reports of the devastating effects of the weevil in places like Elche and Murcia on the Spanish mainland, the authorities here failed to take adequate measures to prevent the entrance of the picudo rojo and yet another pest has gained entry to the archipelago.

The ministerial ban looks to many like a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted."