By law you do required to apply for permit. It should be apply thru customs for quarentein clearance. Or contact customs and they should have some idea about who you should speak to.

But people do able to "smuggle" in foreign life form via mail packages, sometimes customs will confestigate it, sometime the packages will just got thru. I do recall that there was a group of uni researchers that ordered some earthworms thru the internet, and they got it thru mail. Another famous example is that our rubber trees are actually smuggled in from brazil during the early days in the form of rubber seed, and hence we have all our rubber trees.

So, if you really want to order chili seeds from oversea, its better that you apply for permit first. As quality chili seeds usually cost as much as real gold by weight. Dont do something like me - send a mooncake box to hometown and it never arrive.

Mind tell us why you dont order from local provider? They are reputable and readily available, sometimes they can even provide technical assistance.


Note: Prickly Pear Cactus was brought into australia to plant around a farm as a living fence. However the Australia weather condition is so suitable to the cactus and soon it grown out of control and form an outbreak, covering significant area of farm lands and rendering they unusable therefore badly affecting food production.

Later they brought in a Moth species from where the cactus came from, and the Moth's caterpillar basically ate all the cactus and fixed the problem.[/spoiler]