What Is Forest Health
The resilience, recurrence, and persistence have defined forest health and biophysical processes in the forests, leading to sustainable ecological conditions and simultaneously satisfying human needs. The definition and understanding of forest health depend on the spatial scale.
In order to maintain, enhance and restore healthy forest conditions, it is of utmost importance to provide forest insect, disease, invasive plant surveying and monitoring, technical and financial assistance to prevent, suppress, and control outbreaks threatening forest resources.
Forest Health Protection
The U.S. Forest Service, a division of the United States Department of Agriculture, has over 250 specialists in the fields of forest entomology and forest pathology. The Forest Health Protection program provides forest health-related services to protect the forests from insects, disease, and invasive species. This is achieved through developing, promoting, and implementing pest management strategies and monitoring evolving trends in overall forest health.
Additionally, the Forest Service’s Research and Development team has worked on improving the health and use of our Nation’s forests and grasslands ever since the agency’s inception in 1905. Researchers closely collaborate with biological, physical, and social scientists to create plans for sustainable management of the Nation’s diverse forests and rangelands.
Forests and the pests that affect them are a part of a complex ecosystem, which makes managing tree health challenging and requires approaches that will safeguard the resilience of forests. Forest pest control can be either natural or artificial. Natural control includes changes in climatic conditions, nutrition, host resistance, and biotic factors. Artificial control comprises methods such as silvicultural control, biological control, microbial control, and chemical control. Moreover, the process of pest management includes understanding the biology of pests and diseases, and learning how to combat or live with them successfully.
To draft sustainable control strategies, researchers need a better understanding of the mechanisms driving the resurgence of native pathogens and the invasion of alien ones. Namely, with the help of experimental monitoring approaches. Such approaches include creating different scenarios which vary in pathogen and host populations size, genetics, phenotype and phenology, landscape fragmentation, the occurrence of disturbances, management practices, etc. Scientists will have better insight into the epidemiology and invasiveness of forest pathogens, and ultimately will gather the knowledge to create effective management plans.
International Year of Plant Health: Experts Join Forces to Protect World Forests From Invasive Pests and Pathogens
The United Nations General Assembly declared 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). Pathologists and entomologists from the EU project HOMED (Holistic Management of Emerging forest pests and Diseases) aim to prevent or reduce the detrimental impact on forests of alien and emerging native pests and pathogens. With united knowledge and expertise, researchers battle the biotic threats posed by infestations and improve the long-term health of forests. Protection and improvement of forest health are crucial steps towards effective climate regulation, wood production, biodiversity reservoir, and, ultimately, human well-being. Scientists at HOMED use a unique methodology from several scientific fields and a technological and risk management approach to prevent, detect, diagnose, eradicate, and control emerging native and non-native pests threatening forest health.
HOMED recognized the need to make a parallel between the fields of pathology and entomology with the ultimate goal to improve the long-term health of forests. Therefore, HOMED recommends joining scientific communities and developing interdisciplinary research programs, developing generic tools and methods for managing pathogens and pests, creating education programs, and training students and volunteers. Project researchers suggest an innovative approach in research policy and the implementation of research results.
Source:
Sapundzhieva, A. (n.d.). International Year of plant health: Experts join forces to protect world forests from invasive pests and pathogens. European Commission. Retrieved from https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/421637-international-year-of-plant-health-experts-join-forces-to-protect-world-forests-from-invasive