Red Imported Fire Ants (RIFA) are rightly considered a super-pest globally, causing high long-term public health, agricultural, economic and environmental costs in countries they invade.
In Australia, an incursion in south-east Queensland (SEQ), probably present since 1992 but found in 2001, has been under attempted eradication ever since. Efforts up to 2017, with government funding of $367 million, confined RIFA to a small part of SEQ, although the infested area has widened somewhat since.
This report into the future of fire ant eradication in Australia paints a stark choice: wind down the program and accept the burden of fire ants forever, continue business as usual and the ongoing cost or pay the fire ant eradication bill now while we still can.