What I do for a Living

In July last year, three days after arriving in Wellington, I started working for Biosecurity New Zealand. My job is to set import requirements to make sure that pests (insects, fungi, bacteria, viruses, etc) of plants do not get into New Zealand and cause economic, environmental or cultural damage. On that first day I was given a project...

Wood pallets and other wood associated with imported items pose a high risk for entry of these pests. The wood used to make this supporting packaging (wood packaging) is often low quality and makes a great home for pests, particularly insects like this guy:
For this reason, the international organisation in charge of plant health, the International Plant Protection Convention, created a standard for the movement of wood packaging between countries.

My task was to align New Zealand's import requirements to the international standard. On Monday, 10 months after I started, I completed the project...a seven page Import Health Standard that outlines New Zealand's requirements for imports of wood packaging.


So that is a bit of what I do five days a week between the hours of 7:45am and 4:30pm.