SweetyStacey

I know that anything wood that you bring into new zealand has to be fumigated by MAF but what about craft things? such as wooden stamps or craft papers or wooden beads etc

Also what about things like a brand new rocker chopper for the kitchen it's a stainless steel blade with a wooden handle. There's lots of things wooden that can't be sprayed either for edible reasons or damage.


Stacey

simonsi

Ummm, no its not quite that way, sealed or treated wooden artifacts are ok and shouldn´t need further treatment.

Should be fine.

Mrs Pointer

I was told that wood is fine as long as it's sealed in some way. You may need to varnish or put a water soluble cover on it that can come off the other end.

I have a couple of hand-crafted African masks and the backs are still rough wood - I'm just going to varnish them.

If the cost of getting it fumigated is greater than it's worth (or emotional value) - it's not coming.

Persephone

They will probably want to inspect anything wooden but will not necessarily treat everything just because it is made of wood. Kitchen equipment should be fine, clean it well and declare it.
We got into NZ with some unsealed wooden masks earlier this year. They just wanted to check for borer/woodworm. We declared them and they had a good look but didn't do anything else to them, they are now on our wall.
If we could have varnished them then we probably would have but we were on holiday and they were so cheap that we decided we'd try and if they ended up being incinerated then we wouldn't have lost much.

Wooly_Cow

The source of the item is important too. Just varnishing the back of an African mask won't necessarily make it 'safe' - I'd declare it and let MAF deal with it rather than risk bringing in anything nasty to NZ!

Mrs Pointer

We have a bit of the Berlin Wall as well - which they will want to fumigate as it's holey concrete. Good shout about declaring the masks though - I got them in Malawi and I'd hate to lose them.

Wooly_Cow

I've got some of that too....but left it behind

Mrs Pointer

My OH was based in Berlin before the wall came down and went back as it was coming down - he loves that bit of concrete.

I took him back there for his birthday 3 years ago. He's the only person I know who thinks Berlin was better with the wall up