An invasive Aussie pest has been eradicated from a wealthy Auckland neighbourhood.
The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) says it's wrapped up surveillance on a residential property in Coatesville, north of central Auckland, where a termite infestation was discovered five years ago in the house and garden.
An investigation determined the termites most likely arrived from Australia in the mid-1990s, in railway sleepers used for landscaping.
The live termites were eradicated by April 2008 and then the site was monitored for the remainder of the required five-year period.
The species, Coptotermes acinaciformis, is an invasive wood pest, MPI plants and environment response team spokesman Bruce Philip says.
"It could cause significant harm to New Zealand's forests, trees and timber structures if it established here."
Incursions of this termite species have been found and eradicated every so often since the 1930s, the MPI says.
The MPI is managing three other responses to this termite in Nelson, Pukekohe and Point Wells.
NZN