Bonsai Importation Pilot Program Now In Effect

In August 2002, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Health Inspection Service ("APHIS") published a new regulation in § 319.37-5(q) of the Code of Federal Regulations, effective on September 18, 2002, that substantially restricted the importation of bonsai from foreign countries like Japan and China. Among other things, the new regulation prohibited the importation into the United States of any "artificially dwarfed plant" that had not been grown in the exporting country for at least two years in a special quarantine greenhouse or screenhouse. APHIS took this action to protect against the introduction of longhorned beetles into the United States.

Because the new regulation would have greatly reduced the importation of high-quality bonsai from Asia for at least two years if not longer, in December 2002 the National Bonsai Foundation wrote to APHIS on behalf of U.S. bonsai importers to request that alternative procedures be put into effect.

Read the letter from Felix Laughlin and the accompanying APPENDIX A: CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL FOR ARTIFICIALLY DWARFED TREE IMPORTS - and - APPENDIX B: COMPLIANCE AGREEMENT in this PDF.

An article about the History of Bonsai
by Thomas Elias

"This paper will focus on how and when people from western countries learned about bonsai, how and when bonsai reached the western countries, and how bonsai became established long after it had been introduced. No attempt will be made to account for more recent times and events following World War II, except for brief highlights of the contributions of Haruo Kaneshiro, John Naka, and Yuji Yoshimura."

>>Click here to read the PDF.