Every band that is wet is one too much. Wilfred Reinhold, the man behind the Stop Stop Invasive Exoten Foundation, made his point at the Council of State on Monday afternoon. Every wet band that is imported warns Reinhold, can offer the perfect conditions for the eggs of exotic mosquitoes.
Reinhold started the platform about twenty years ago. It was easier to conduct lawsuits from a foundation than as an individual, but he runs the platform more or less on his own. While other people may be happy with the introduction of ‘new’ animal species, Reinhold (and with him more people) sees a problem: those newcomers bring the local ecosystem out of balance. The invasive exotic for which he came to The Hague on Monday is the tiger mosquito.
Puddle
Reinhold focuses its arrows on the tire sector. Dutch companies Imports used tires from abroad to resell them. It is about the heavier work: tires for tractors and planes. They must be imported dry, because if there is a puddle of water in it, eggs from the tiger mosquito can develop into larva and ultimately into an adult tiger mosquito. And so Reinhold asks for even stricter enforcement at tire companies.
The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, the body that monitors the ‘import’ of mosquitoes, is already strictly maintaining. In the mosquito season, depending on the weather about April to November, the NVWA comes to check at the tire companies. Every two weeks, to see if there are traces of tiger mosquitoes. And mosquito traps are put down. Controls also take place during unloading, to see if the tires get wet into the land. In addition to tires, for example, the import of the Lucky Bamboo plant is strictly checked.
A spokesperson notes – “in the broader framework of the tiger mosquito fighting” – that the problem is not “the import of some wet ties in companies”.
The residential areas, the NVWA sees a rise of the mosquito. The mosquito is already established in large parts of Europe, and so travelers accidentally take eggs or mosquitoes into cars, trailers, caravans and souvenirs. So far it was a reasonable year: tiger mosquitoes have been found at only two tire companies, compared to thirteen other locations. A lot better than 2023, when it involved nine tire locations (and more than thirty other locations).
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Tiger mosquitoes can be annoying. The stitch can hurt, but you don’t have to. In countries where the mosquitoes are common, they can transfer infectious diseases to people, such as Dengue and Chikungunya. But in the Netherlands the mosquito is not established and the chance of such diseases is still ‘negligibly small’.
For those who want to recognize the mosquito: they are black and white and “quite small,” according to the NVWA. Quite small means: they easily fit on a 10 -cents coin. Ordinary mosquitoes are slightly larger.
Other countries
The specific reason why Reinhold is at the Council of State on Monday? He complains about the performance of the NVWA at a company where two wet tires were found. The inspection maintains – not a policy, but a rule of conduct – that one or two percent of the tires may be wet. The assessment looks at the history of a company: is it an ‘frequent offender’ or are the tires always imported dry?
Reinhold believes that wet tires should always lead to sanctions, even if it is only one, or two. The court in Amsterdam did not agree with him before. In six weeks, or a little longer, because of the summer, he will hear what the Council of State thinks about it.
The tire companies where tiger mosquitoes have been found in recent years refer to Arie Verhoef van Veco, the industry association for tire and wheel farms. Verhoef finds the case at the Council of State “a waste of time and energy.” The tire companies have been working with the government on tiger mosquito prevention since 2009. In this way they try to “keep the mosquito clean”. It is the other countries where the problem lies, he sees. Germany, Belgium, France, go and have a look there. “If our members in Germany say that the NVWA comes to watch every two weeks, the Germans will see if they see water burning.”