People in the UK have a lot of reason to be angry at what the past 30 years of Thatcher-style privatization and globalization have wrought to the economy and their lives. And they are angry–witness the 200,000-strong marches against austerity that took place ten days ago on October 20 (2012). Stories like the following–the devastation of tree species in the United Kingdom (two news articles, plus postscript)–are an unsung part of the bipartisan legacy of capitalism run amok that is fueling that anger.–RA
It’s not just the ash. Larch, willow and oak face unprecedented threat from invaders
By John Vidal, Environment Reporter, The Guardian, Nov 1, 2012
The UK’s forests are under “unprecedented threat” from foreign pests and diseases, according to the government department responsible for the protection of forests and woodlands. The ash dieback fungus found in East Anglia last week is just the latest invader to pose a serious threat to UK trees, and government ecologists say that more than 3m larch trees as well as thousands of mature oaks and chestnuts have been felled in the past three years to prevent similar fatal plant diseases from spreading out of control.
“We are under an unprecedented level of threat from a range of exotic pests and diseases, a lot associated with the international trade in live plants,” said the Forestry Commission. “There are protections in place but the EU plant health regime is no longer fit for purpose. Too many pests and diseases are still getting through.”
More than 100,000 ash trees have already been felled to prevent the spread of ash dieback, or Chalara fraxinea , since the disease was identified in March.
But very many more larch trees have had to be cut down in the West Country, Wales and Scotland this year to prevent a plant disease caused by the Phytophthora ramorum pathogen from spreading. Known as “sudden oak death” in the US, it so far has not infected British oaks, but since its discovery in the wild in 2009 it has been found extensively in larch populations in southwest England, Wales and south-west Scotland, resulting in many of the trees being felled over a wide area.
“We now have six to eight organisms in the British Isles that are a real concern. In the 1960s and 70s it was Dutch elm disease, which killed 30m trees; in the 1990s it was a new Phytophthora which devastated alders along riverbanks. But in the last 10 years we have had as many new diseases as we had in the previous 40 or 50 years,” said Joan Webber, principal pathologist at Forest Research, the Forestry Commission’s research arm.
Plant experts are particularly concerned about the oak processionary moth, which arrived in west London in 2009 and has now developed two major populations. “It has the potential to spread anywhere there are oak trees. It is extending its range and has become established in the Netherlands and Belgium, possibly as a result of climate change and warmer winters,” says the Forestry Commission.
Plant pathogens are on the rise globally and Britain is particularly susceptible because of its increasingly warm, wet winters and because it is a centre of world trade. Easy access to plants from around the world has encouraged gardeners to buy millions of exotic plants, many of which can arrive diseased.
The diseases and pests can arrive by several routes, say ecologists. In March, more than 250 live larvae of the Asian longhorn beetle, which can kill oak and willows, were found in trees in Kent. More than 2,000 trees had to be felled and burned. It was thought to have entered in wooden packaging for Chinese stone.
Dothistroma needle blight , which affects a range of conifer species, threatens commercial forests by significantly reducing timber yields. It has been found in all of the commission’s forest districts in England and Scotland, and three out of four forest districts in Wales.
Tony Kirkham, head of the arboretum at Kew Gardens, which has 14,000 trees and has seen many attacked in the past few years, said some of the most serious threats came from the oak processionary moth. The caterpillars can cause serious defoliation and weaken oaks to the point where they are prone to other diseases.
Let’s rename the ash dieback ‘Cameron’s contagion’
The government’s disgraceful failure to act on this disease reflects an ideological fixation with unimpeded commerce
By George Monbiot, Columnist, The Guardian, Oct 25, 2012
There could not be a clearer case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. For the past three years there have been clear and unequivocal warnings that ash dieback could come to Britain. If action was not taken, ecologists, foresters and even some importers warned, the disease would arrive here through imports of infected seedlings from the continent. But neither this government nor its predecessor saw fit to ban them.
In February, the first case was confirmed in Britain: in imported seedlings in a tree nursery in Buckinghamshire. Yet still the government failed to ban imports. The disease then appeared in nine more sites: all of them containing recently imported trees. Amazingly, the government still failed to act. It promised a consultation, which would report at the end of this month: only then would it decide what to do.
On Wednesday, the warnings were horribly vindicated, when the fungus was found, for the first time in Britain, in mature trees growing in the wild, in Norfolk and Suffolk. Now there might be no stopping it. The disease has already killed 90% of the ash trees in Denmark: here too it could do to the countryside what Dutch Elm disease did in the 1960s.
Something else happened yesterday: the government announced that it’s considering an imminent ban on imports of infected seedlings. You couldn’t satirise this decision. The government waits until the disease is established to take the measures required to prevent its establishment.
The Country Land and Business Asssociation – with which I seldom find myself in agreement – has got this dead right. It’s symptomatic of a wider failure to take exotic threats to our wildlife seriously. “For far too long successive governments have failed to tackle the growing threat of tree diseases. Phytophthora ramorum [the disease sometimes known as sudden oak death] has spread like wildfire up the west coast of Britain, from Cornwall to Scotland, killing hundreds of thousands of larch trees, and it is now moving eastward. Yet a mere £4m a year has been earmarked to fight it.”
Both Gordon Brown’s administration and the current government – in particular the former environment secretaries Hilary Benn and Caroline Spelman – have a lot of explaining to do. But the overriding responsibility lies with the coalition, which, perhaps through an ideological fixation with unimpeded commerce, failed to respond even as the warnings became stark and unmistakable.
I propose a new name for this disease, which reflects the government’s astonishing and disgraceful failure to act. I think we should call it “Cameron’s contagion”.
Postscript
Most UK ash trees will be diseased ‘within 10 years’
Calls for quarantines, bans and passports for plants. Crisis meeting of ministers hears bleak outlook .
John Vidal, Environment editor, The Guardian , Nov 3, 2012
Ash dieback disease will spread across the UK by around 30km a year, infecting most of the country’s 90m ash trees within a decade, the government was told yesterday at a crisis meeting with its leading environment advisers. It is feared many more clusters will be identified in the next year and that spores from the fungus will spread from the east of England and Scotland to eventually cover Britain – in some cases carried on people’s clothes.
The grim picture was set out by Ian Boyd, chief scientist with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, at a national emergency Cabinet Office briefing room (Cobra) meeting led by the environment secretary, Owen Paterson.
Even if the native ash tree cannot be saved, the meeting was told, such is the tide of similar deadly plant diseases now coming into Britain on millions of imported plants every year that drastic measures like long quarantine periods and passports for all plants may be needed.
In the gloomiest prognosis yet made of the disease now known to be infecting trees in Scotland, East Anglia and possibly Kent, Boyd warned ministers that trees cannot be vaccinated, and the airborne disease would be too expensive to treat chemically. He said the spores first found in Britain in March can be spread even by the moving of leaves.
But some ash trees are likely to have natural immunity, he said. “Older trees infected with ash dieback may weaken but die of other diseases. Trees are more likely to be affected in forests than if they are isolated,” he said.
The government will hold a tree summit next week at which proposals will be discussed by the forestry industries, scientists, charities and nurseries. The most radical suggestion is expected to be for more rigorous border checks on the billions of trees and plants imported into Britain and Europe from around the world every year for parks, gardens, woodlands and forests.
“There is a tidal wave of pathogens coming in. It is terrifying. We have to have a strategic response. Unless we have better biosecurity in the EU and Europe it will be very difficult to stop them coming in. It is difficult to ban all imports. It has to be done on a risk basis,” said Martin Ward, chief plant health officer at Defra’s Food and Environment Research Agency.
Other measures expected to be discussed by government include forcing nurseries to attach “plant passports” to all imported plants; a new system to ensure all plants are safe before they enter Britain; tighter rules on suppliers; restrictions on the public bringing in plants from abroad; and a radical overhaul of the European plant protection system.
But other plant experts yesterday called for stronger measures. Tony Kirkham, head of the arboretum at Kew Gardens, which has 14,000 trees, told the Guardian: “Ash dieback shows how fragile our woodlands are and how something can turn into a disaster very quickly. Most of us were not even aware of it until very lately.
“There are so many pests and diseases out there. We can buy trees in Italy, France, anywhere nowadays. I don’t think we should be allowed to do that. I think there should be bans on anything that threatens a species, and a one year quarantine system for all woodland species coming into Britain.”
Joan Webber, principal pathologist at Forest Research, the research agency of the UK Forestry Commission, said: “There have been more outbreaks of diseases in the past 10 years than we had in the whole of the last century. These organisms reinvent themselves when they move into an unknown habitat. Plants have little or no resistance to them. It can happen very quickly.” She urged anyone going into woods to clean their boots.
But she said that a full quarantine system on all plants entering Britain would be difficult to work and some plants might not show evidence of disease for nearly two years.
Scots pine could be next as ‘tidal wave’ of deadly disease spreads
Threat to British trees ‘terrifying’, say experts, as fears grow over continental pathogens
By Robin McKie, Science Editor , The Observer, Nov 4, 2012
Scientists have pinpointed the Scots pine as the next well-loved British tree species that could fall victim to foreign pathogens. They believe that the expected devastation triggered as ash die back disease sweeps Britain – which could see most of the country’s 90 million ash trees killed off – could soon be followed by a second invasion. A red deer among Scots pines in the Highlands. Scientists blame the rising trade in exotic plants for the influx of diseases. Alamy
Pinus sylvestris is considered to be particularly vulnerable because two major pests that attack it have already established themselves in western Europe: the pine wood nematode, a worm that infects pine trees and causes pine wilt, and the fungus Fusarium circinatum, which causes the disease pitch canker.
Both pathogens are poised to spread to Britain, say tree experts, and a simultaneous double attack would be devastating. The Scots pine is the national tree of Scotland and is distinctive for its blue-green needles and rich orange-red bark. It is also an important source of timber in the UK.
“I am extremely worried about the Scots pine,” said Dr Steve Woodward, reader in tree pathology at Aberdeen University. “It is an iconic tree to these islands and it is particularly vulnerable to these two tree pathogens, both of which have established themselves in France, Spain and Portugal and are causing tremendous damage there.”
Woodward was speaking last week at a briefing at the Science Media Centre where leading researchers outlined the risks now facing the forests, woods, gardens and parks of Britain following the discovery that ash die back, caused by the fungus Chalara fraxinea , has established itself.
Ian Boyd, chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), said the disease was probably now infecting mature trees in Kent as well as East Anglia, where it was first found. “The disease almost certainly spreads through spores on the wind but may also spread through fallen leaves,” said Boyd. However, he ruled out the use of chemicals to treat the disease as impractical given the numbers of trees involved.
Ash die back is just one of “a tidal wave of pathogens” that are arriving in Europe, added Dr Martin Ward, Defra’s chief plant officer, who described the situation as terrifying. “Unless we have better biosecurity in the EU it will be very difficult to stop them coming in,” he added.
This view was backed by Woodward, who feared the Scots pine was the most vulnerable of all UK trees to future pathogen invasions. “We know that pitch canker is now established in northern Spain where it affects native pines, and we know that the Scots pine is susceptible to it. We also know that thousands of hectares of pines have had to be felled in Portugal to try to contain the pine wood nematode there. Now it has spread to Spain. It could arrive at any time.”
Billions of plants and trees are now traded within the EU every year, often with large amounts of soil attached to each plant, and experts like Woodward and Boyd fear such quantities of material make it impossible to control pathogens. “Some plants have 1,000 litres of soil with them,” said Joan Webber, principal pathologist of Forest Research, the research agency of the Forestry Commission. “That soil is a black box full of billions of bacteria. It is very difficult to inspect and intercept.”
Most experts blame the rising trade in exotic plants from Asia as a key cause of the rise in outbreaks of tree diseases in the UK. Webber said that during the whole of the 20th century, Britain had five major pest and pathogen outbreaks, including two outbreaks of Dutch elm disease. So far this century, there have been more than double the total figure for the previous 100 years.
Suggestions to try to limit future outbreaks include plant passports to reveal the origin of a sapling or cutting and placing some woods and parks in quarantine. Walkers have been urged to wash their boots after strolling in woods or forests. “We are going to have to be very careful about how we treat our woods in future,” Woodward said.
No way to eradicate ash dieback –minister
Public asked to help slow spread of the disease. Non-affected trees may provide stock for renewal.
By Damian Carrington, The Guardian, Nov 10, 2012
It will be impossible to eradicate the fungus threatening to destroy Britain’s ash trees, the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, acknowledged yesterday . An action plan agreed at a meeting of the government’s emergency response committee, Cobra, will focus on harnessing the help of the public to try to slow the spread of the disease, while searching for trees that have a genetic resistance to the disease, which could provide stock for a new breeding programme.
More than 100,000 newly planted and nursery trees with the disease have already been destroyed and that will continue, Paterson said. But mature trees will not be burned, because they are important for other wildlife and may help identify resistant strains.
Paterson also promised a “very, very radical” overhaul of his priorities at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), with much more spent on tackling the rising number of exotic diseases affecting plants and trees, and less spent in other areas.
“It won’t be possible to eradicate this disease now that we have discovered it in mature trees in Great Britain,” said Paterson. “However, that does not necessarily mean the end of the British ash. If we can slow its spread and minimise its impact, we will gain time to find those trees with genetic resistance to the disease. Wildlife and countryside groups will play a major role in minimising the impact of the disease and so will the general public, especially when it comes to spotting other areas where the disease has taken hold.”
Martin Harper, RSPB conservation director, said: “The plan is a vital part of stopping the spread of this disease. However, it is essential we do not divert resources away from other vital environmental services. Money must be found from central government coffers or we will simply be robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
Mary Creagh, Labour’s shadow environment secretary, said: “Ministers should urgently review whether the Forestry Commission has adequate resources to do its job and explain how cutting 530 forestry staff will help deal with future tree diseases.”
The number of sites identified with ash infected with the Chalara fraxinea fungus has risen from 115 on Wednesday to 129 on Thursday, after a nationwide survey involving around 500 people. The government has already banned the import of ash trees and movement of trees around the country.
Prof Ian Boyd, the Defra’s chief scientific adviser, said: “By next season we could potentially have resistant forms of ash growing, though as very small saplings.” Paterson cautioned against false hope, but said: “The great thing is, ash reproduces quite quickly. If we know a small number of trees survived the very intense epidemic in Denmark [where 90% were infected], there must be hope here.”
He added: “What is regrettable is that I don’t have a pot of magic potion to go up in a helicopter and spray on infected trees. There is no chemical we know of that kills this fungus.”
Paterson criticised current EU trade rules: “At the moment forestry and plant products are treated by the European Union as freely tradable products – is that really appropriate? We need to have a radical rethink.”
