Abstract
The UK needs to develop effective policy responses to the spread of tree pathogens and pests. This has been given the political urgency following the media and other commentary associated with the arrival of a disease that causes ‘dieback’ of European Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) - a tree species with deep cultural associations. In 2014 the UK government published a plant biosecurity strategy and linked to this invested in research to inform policy. This paper reports the findings of a survey of informed UK publics on the acceptability of various potential strategies to deal with ash dieback, including “no action”. During the summer of 2015, we conducted a face-to-face survey of 1152 respondents attending three major countryside events that attract distinct publics interested in the countryside: landowners & land managers; naturalists and gardeners.We found that UK publics who are likely to engage discursively and politically (through letter writing, petitions etc.) with the issue of ash dieback a) care about the issue, b) want an active response, c) do not really distinguish between ash trees in forestry or ecological settings, and d) prefer traditional breeding solutions. Further that e) younger people and gardeners are open to GM breeding techniques, but f) the more policy-empowered naturalists are more likely to be anti-GM. We suggest that these findings provide three ‘steers’ for science and policy: 1) policy needs to include an active intervention component involving the breeding of disease-tolerant trees, 2) that the development of disease tolerance using GM-technologies could be part of a tree-breeding policy, and 3) there is a need for an active dialogue with publics to manage expectations on the extent to which science and policy can control tree disease or, put another way, to build acceptability for the prospect that tree diseases may have to run their course.
Highlights
The spread and establishment of tree pathogens and pests beyond their natural ranges has potentially serious consequences for tree health and for ecology, economy and society (Brasier, 2008)
We further found that respondents' attitude to genetic modification (GM) food/crops was significantly correlated (p b 0.001) with their ranking of tree breeding solutions, with those in favour of GM food and crops being more likely to give a higher rank to the GM options to deal with ash dieback
From a forward-looking policy perspective two findings concerning the level of acceptability of GM techniques amongst Millenials and gardeners are significant, namely: 1) respondents are less averse to GM solutions when asked directly about these compared to when asked to score them in a list of other options including natural breeding; 2) those who are less concerned about ‘nativeness’ are more likely to find GM ash trees acceptable as did a substantial proportion of Millennials and gardeners (81.1% of Millennials and 53.4% of gardeners selected cis-genetics as one of their top 3 choices). These findings suggest that going forward developing and planting GM trees may become a publically acceptable solution to deal with tree diseases
Summary
The spread and establishment of tree pathogens and pests beyond their natural ranges has potentially serious consequences for tree health and for ecology, economy and society (Brasier, 2008) Such incursions are increasing at a time when plants are stressed by factors such as climate change, habitat fragmentation and development (Webber, 2010). In the UK European Ash is a well-known and loved tree species on account of its cultural, spiritual and literary associations, and its use as a timber and fuelwood source (Rackham, 2014) Confirmation that this disease was the cause of dieback of several hundred ash trees provoked a spike of media reporting between September and December 2012. Such reporting and associated commentary generated intense pressure on the government to explain the perceived policy failure and ‘do something’
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