UK tree expert issues 'unknown' pest threat warning
The biggest threat facing UK trees is a disease that
is both unknown and unexpected, Dr Slawson said
A tree expert has said the biggest
threat facing UK trees is likely to come from a disease currently unknown to
science.
The warning came as a leading UK citizen science programme launched a tree health monitoring project.
Tree officers suggest urban trees, already under stress from city living, are among the most susceptible.
Last year's arrival of ash dieback threatens to change the nation's treescape forever, ecologists say.
"Firstly, it is important to say that is very difficult to prioritise what are the main threats," explained David Slawson, head of plant health public engagement at the Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera).
"But I would always say the main threat is 'unknown'."
Dr Slawson added: "It may sound slightly alarming, but the likes of Phytophthora ramorum was not defined by science when it started causing problems.
Continue reading the main story
Symptoms of Chalara dieback
- Diseased saplings typically display dead tops and side shoots.
- Lesions often found at base of dead side shoots.
- Lesions on branch or stem can cause wilting of foliage above.
- Disease affects mature trees by killing off new growth.
"It could be an unknown disease that could be the next
big thing and that is why putting generic measures in place that aim to protect
against everything are so vital."
One of those measures is a formal scientific process called Pest Risk Analysis (PRA), he told BBC News.
"So there is a very well established international procedure on how you do assess the risk of an individual pest," he said.
As well as safeguards put in place by plant scientists within Fera and the Forestry Commission, Dr Slawson explained that the European Plant Protection Organization (EPPO) was continually monitoring the movement of potential threats to Europe's flora.
EPPO also publishes Pest Alerts, which acts as an early warning system and often forms the basis for scientists to exchange data and research at the monthly meeting of the EU Plant Health Standing Committee.
Now, another dimension has been added to the array of monitoring methods - citizen scientists.
Fera is one of the partners in the Open Air Laboratories' (Opal) latest survey, which focuses on tree health.
Opal is was designed to get people outdoors and provide a chance to get involved in scientific research.
Its director, Dr Linda Davies, said: "Tree health is one of the most important surveys Opal has developed so far.
"Whilst learning about local trees and gathering lots of interesting information, local people can also contribute their findings to a national research programme investigating the condition of the nation's trees and the factors affecting them."
Bleak expectations
Scientists are expecting this summer to reveal that ash dieback will have extended it reach across the landscape.
Disease is expected to kill the plane trees lining
France's Canal du Midi The omens are not promising. This week saw the first confirmation of an outbreak of Chalara fraxinea disease in the wider environment in Wales.
"Once again, it brings into sharp focus the ongoing threat our trees and woods are facing and highlights the need for a stringent plan of action to protect them," said Austin Brady, head of conservation at the Woodland Trust.
"Ash dieback is just one of the many diseases and pests already in the country with many more just across the border in Europe."
Keen for early detection of new cases of ash dieback, the Forestry Commission has posted a video on its website to help people identify infected trees during the spring.
The Commission said the video was designed to help people spot tell-tale signs on ash trees, which are late coming into leaf compared with other species.
"We are particularly interested in suspected cases in counties where it has not been found so far," Dr John Morgan, head of the Commission's Plant Health Service.
He added that August and September were the best months to look for symptoms of dieback because by the autumn infected leaves could be confused with leaves that were naturally changing colour.
Although the temporary ban on ash imports remains in force, the government issued a statutory plant order in January that required people to notify officials if they planned to bringing ash, sweet chestnut and plane trees into England.
How ash dieback could threaten Britain's wildlife
Continue reading the main story
Britain's population of 80 million ash trees provides
shelter and food for a wide range of wildlife, mostly birds and insects. The
species' loosely-branched structure means plenty of light reaches the woodland
floor, allowing a variety of plants to grow beneath them. 
Wild garlic (ramsons) is among the plants that
thrives beneath the ash tree. Others include dog's mercury, wood cranesbill,
wood avens and hazel. Because ash bark is alkaline, the trees also support a
wide range of lichens and mosses and attract snails. 
Carpets of bluebells are often seen under and around
ash trees. Norfolk’s Lower Wood, in Ashwellthorpe, famous for its spring display
of bluebells, is among those areas where ash dieback disease has been
discovered. 
A rich ground layer beneath the ash means plenty of
food for birds such as warblers, flycatchers and redstarts. Hole-nesting birds,
such as owls, woodpeckers and the nuthatch, are also frequent visitors.
More than 100 species of insect are also known to
live on ash. At least 60 of the rarest have an association with the tree –
mostly beetles and flies. Because ash is very long-lived, it can also support
specialist deadwood species, like the lesser stag beetle. 
The brown hairstreak butterfly, the largest of the UK
hairstreaks, is also a frequent user of the ash. They congregate high in the
trees for breeding. Ash also supports a wide variety of moths. Source: The
Wildlife Trusts
The Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) wants the
government to go further and ban imports of the three tree species, all of which
have been the victims of potentially devastating infections overseas.
Researchers hope the Opal tree survey will encourage
people to take a closer look at nature The arrival of ash dieback in the UK was in February 2012 when a consignment from a nursery in the Netherlands was confirmed to be infected with the disease.
The HTA called for ash imports to be banned in 2009 after seeing the impact of the disease in Denmark.
Recently, the HTA said that sweet chestnut tree imports should also be banned as concern grew about the spread of a usually fatal blight (caused by the fungus Cryphonectria parasitica) through much of mainland Europe.
The UK had a close escape in late 2011 when the disease was identified at nine locations but the infected trees were destroyed before the fungus became established in the surrounding environment.
It had previously never been recorded in the UK on the species that the Romans are understood to have originally introduced to Britain.
In late 2011, the HTA also called for the introduction of a ban on plane tree imports.
A fungal disease, known as canker stain of plane trees and found in mainland Europe, has a history of leaving a trail of devastation in its wake.
It was first recorded in the US during the 1930s and, in the space of a few decades, had wiped out most, if not all, London plane trees (Platanus × acerifolia) - a popular street tree - in cities along the east coast, from New York state to Louisiana.
It is believed to have been brought to Europe via crating material, made from infected wood, used by the US military during World War II.
Watching and waiting
French researchers fear the highly infectious disease will wipe out all of the estimated 42,000 plane trees that line the banks of the nation's 240km (150-mile) Canal du Midi - a UN world heritage site - by the middle of the next decade.
Jake Tibbetts, chairman of the London Tree Officers Association, says the arrival of canker stain of plane trees in the UK would be deeply worrying.
He said: "When you talk about the heritage of trees and what we have gained from the planting done by the Victorians, my biggest concern is that as those big, landmark trees had to removed en mass, very quickly, we would suddenly be left with a very different urban landscape - one that would be very problematic to replant.
"When those trees were planted [in Victorian times], the soil was in better condition, pavements were not as impermeable as they are now.
"And there was not the same level of competition above and below ground that those trees now have," he told BBC News.
"London plane trees, a decade ago, were thought to be as tough as old boots, with no real pests or diseases to threaten them.
"They were considered fantastic trees to plant and would grow anywhere; now we are having to question whether London plane trees are suitable trees to plant for the future."
Deep sea mining 'gold rush' moves closer
The idea of exploiting precious metals on the ocean
floor has been considered for decadeRERelated Stories
RELATED STORY.
The prospect of a deep sea "gold
rush" opening a controversial new frontier for mining on the ocean floor has
moved a step closer.
The United Nations has published its first plan for managing the extraction of so-called "nodules" - small mineral-rich rocks - from the seabed.
A technical study was carried out by the UN's International Seabed Authority - the body overseeing deep sea mining.
It says companies could apply for licences from as soon as 2016.
“Start Quote
End Quote Dr Jon Copley University of SouthamptonI don't think we own the deep ocean in the sense that we can do what we like with it”
The idea of exploiting the gold, copper, manganese,
cobalt and other metals of the ocean floor has been considered for decades but
only recently became feasible with high commodity prices and new technology.
Conservation experts have long warned that mining the seabed will be highly destructive and could have disastrous long-term consequences for marine life.
The ISA study itself recognizes that mining will cause "inevitable environmental damage".
But the report comes amid what a spokesman describes as "an unprecedented surge" of interest from state-owned and private mining companies.
Sharing the proceeds
The number of licences issued to prospect for minerals now stands at 17 with another seven due to be granted and more are likely to follow. They cover vast areas of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
One of the most recent to be granted was to UK Seabed Resources, a subsidiary of the British arm of Lockheed Martin, the American defence giant.
Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the ISA was set up to encourage and manage seabed mining for the wider benefit of humanity - with a share of any profits going to developing countries.
The chimneys of hydrothermal vents contain many
metals in high abundance Now the ISA is taking the significant step of moving from simply handling bids for mineral exploration to considering how to license the first real mining operations and how to share the proceeds.
The ISA's legal counsel, Michael Lodge, told the BBC: "We are at the threshold of a new era of deep seabed mining."
The lure is obvious. An assessment of the eastern Pacific - a five million sq km area known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone - concluded that more than 27 billion tonnes of nodules could be lying on the sand.
Those rocks would contain a staggering seven billion tonnes of manganese, 340 million tonnes of nickel, 290 million tonnes of copper and 78 million tonnes of cobalt - although it's not known how much of this is accessible.
A map shows the spread of licensed areas across the zone.
Right incentives
According to the planning study, the ISA faces the challenge of trying to ensure that nodule mining's benefits will reach beyond the companies themselves while also fostering commercially viable operations.
The plan relies on providing operators with the right incentives to risk what would be expensive investments without losing the chance for developing countries to get a slice of the proceeds.
But the ISA identifies what it calls a "Catch-22" in this brand new industry as it tries to assess which companies are skilled enough to carry out the work.
"Competence cannot be gained," it says, "without actual mining at a commercial scale, but at the same time mining should not be allowed without prior demonstration of competence."
A key factor in the ISA's thinking is the need for environmental safeguards, so the document calls for monitoring of the seabed during any mining operation - though critics wonder if activity in the ocean depths can be policed.
The prospect of deep sea mining has already sparked a vigorous debate among marine scientists, as I found earlier this year on a visit to the British research ship, James Cook, exploring the hydrothermal vents of the Cayman Trough.
The expedition's chief scientist, Dr Jon Copley, a biologist from the University of Southampton, urged caution.
"I don't think we own the deep ocean in the sense that we can do what we like with it," he said. "Instead we share responsibility for its stewardship.
"We don't have a good track record of achieving balance anywhere else - think of the buffalo and the rainforest - so the question is, can we get it right?"
Extinction risk
And Prof Paul Tyler, also a biologist, of the National Oceanography Centre, warned that unique species would be at risk.
"If you wipe out that area by mining, those animals have to do one of two things: they disperse and colonise another hydrothermal vent somewhere or they die.
"And what happens when they die is that the vent will become biologically extinct."
However, marine chemist Prof Rachel Mills, of the University of Southampton, called for a wider debate about mining generally on the grounds that we all use minerals and that mines on land are far larger than any would be on the seabed.
She has carried out research for Nautilus Minerals, a Canadian firm planning to mine hydrothermal vents off Papua New Guinea.
"Everything we are surrounded by, the way we live, relies on mineral resources and we don't often ask where they come from," she said.
"We need to ask whether there is sustainable mining on land and whether there is sustainable mining in the seas.
"I actually think it is the same moral questions we ask whether it's from the Andes or down in the Bismarck Sea."
This debate is set to intensify as the reality of the first mining operations comes closer.
China joins Arctic Council but a decision on the EU is deferred
Environmental changes all across the Arctic are
driving up global interest in the region
China is one of a number of countries
that has gained permanent observer status on the Arctic Council.
At a meeting in Sweden, the eight members of the Council accepted India, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Singapore.
However following dissent from Canada, a decision on the EU's application has been deferred.
The permanent observers have no decision making powers.
The opening up of the Arctic to shipping and oil and gas exploitation has fuelled worldwide interest in the region.
“Start Quote
End Quote Ruth Davis GreenpeaceAs ministers said, what happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic, so it's a good step to make the Arctic Council open to new voices”
With a changing climate allowing ships to
travel more cheaply and quickly across the Northern route, Asian countries
with ship building industries are particularly interested in closer links to the
region and the Council.
Talking shop
The Arctic Council was set up in the 1990s and has been mainly concerned with environmental matters including climate change and pollution, both of which are being felt more heavily in the Northern regions.
It has eight permanent members made up of the five coastal Arctic countries, Norway, Russia, Canada, US and Denmark - it also includes three other non coastal members, Finland, Iceland and Sweden.
It has limited powers, issuing non binding protocols on member states - but as the ice recedes and the wider exploitation of the region becomes possible, the rest of world has taken notice and wants to be involved.
Already six European countries are permanent observers. Now the Council has accepted some of the world's most important emerging powers into what has been dubbed the "coldrush club", a name that reflects the opportunities many see for the exploitation of oil and gas resources in the region.
Up to 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil reserves, and 30 percent of undiscovered gas deposits are said to lie above the Arctic Circle.
The new observers will have no voting rights and must also confirm they will not challenge the ownership of the five Arctic coastal states.
The meeting in Kiruna, Sweden also agreed on a new manual that will govern the activities and roles of the observers. They will not be able to directly raise issues but will have to bring them forward through one of the eight core members.
But the Council was unable to agree on the application from the European Union. It is believed that Canada, which has now assumed the chairmanship of the Council was strongly opposed to the EU getting a permanent observer seat.
The oil and gas potential of the region is huge with
almost a third of the world's undiscovered gas deposits There have been ongoing disputes between the two over an EU ban on seal fur and other products. The EU is also poised to restrict imports of oil produced in the Alberta tar sands.
The Council said that the application of the EU for observer status was received affirmatively, but it deferred a final decision until the concerns of members are resolved. It is believed that negotiations are now ongoing over the seal fur issue between the Council and the European Commission.
The influx of new permanent observers has been cautiously welcomed by environmental campaigners.
"There are lots of things going on up here that are genuinely of legitimate concern to the rest of the world," Ruth Davis from Greenpeace told BBC News.
"As ministers said what happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic, so it's a good step to make the Arctic Council open to new voices. But really the question is are the voices of those who are on the receiving end of rapid environmental change in the Arctic, are they being heard in the council?"
Spill plans
The growing interest of countries like China and India in joining the Arctic Council reflects the changing nature of the body say observers. Another decision that reflects the beefing up of the Council's activities was the acceptance of an oil spill preparation plan.
According to the Council this legally-binding agreement will substantially improve procedures for dealing with oil leaks in the Arctic.
Speaking during the meeting, US Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the idea.
"As the US was reminded painfully in the Gulf of Mexico, we need strong partnerships and shared operational guidelines before a disaster occurs - We need to prevent disasters happening in the first place," he said.
Leiv Lunde is the director of the and a former special envoy on energy and climate change at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He says that the role of Council in the world is growing significantly.
"The Arctic Council has until now been an organisation for the environmental sectors of government - but you are moving into an area where there are bound to be tradeoffs and big fights about what will going to happen," he said.
"We are going from symbolic postures to real politics and that's a different game."
The Council meeting also published a new scientific report from the Stockholm Environment Institute on the resilience of the Arctic. It suggests that rapid and even abrupt changes are occurring on multiple fronts across the region, raising the risk of crossing thresholds that would cause irreversible changes.
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