CANBERRA: Australian customs officials have destroyed two irreplaceable plant specimens that were being loaned to scientists by New Zealand and French institutions, prompting the agriculture department to concede that some missteps had occurred enforcing strict quarantine laws.
France’s National Museum of Natural History and New Zealand’s Allan Herbarium had sent the samples of lichen specimens, which dated back to the 19th century, to Australia to help research, but they were intercepted by customs officers due to inaccurate paperwork. A spokesman for the Department of Agriculture said the packages did not give any indication of the intrinsic value of the samples, and the customs officers held onto them for longer than they were required before deciding they posed a potential biosecurity threat and incinerating them. “The department concedes the unintentional proceeding with destruction of the specimens was premature,” a spokesperson for the Australian government department said in an emailed statement.
