The spread of the deadly fungus threatening British ash trees cannot be stopped, a leading Government scientist has said, and Britain’s woods and forests will have to undergo major change as a result. Source: The Independent
As new figures were issued showing that chalara, or ash dieback disease, had now been found in 115 sites from Northumberland to Sussex, the Chief Scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Professor Ian Boyd, conceded that the march of the disease across the countryside would be impossible to halt.
Chalara kills ash trees, which cannot be vaccinated against it, and there is no cure. Professor Boyd said there would be a decline in British ash trees over many years, and the only effective response would be to find and breed strains of ash which were innately fungus-resistant, and which could replace native species.
A major research program to do this is being considered, under the auspices of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, he said, although he would give no figures of the possible funding involved.
Professor Boyd was speaking after a “tree summit” of scientists, conservation and environmental charities and landowners, to discuss the chalara problem, which heard the latest results of the intensive survey carried out by the Forestry Commission.
The disease has now been confirmed in 115 sites: 15 nurseries, 39 planting sites and 61 locations in the wider environment (forests and woodlands).
The Government will publish an action plan with initial ideas about addressing the issue. It is unlikely that this will involve large-scale sprayings of fungicide or removal of mature trees from woodlands, as officials were urged at the tree summit “not to make the solution more damaging than the problem.”
