Definitions
- Insect: an organism with six legs, an external skeleton with three body parts, and two antennae.
- Disease: any condition in a plant caused by any living organism (a pathogen, including any fungus, bacterium, or virus) that interferes with the normal growth and development of any plant.
- Forestry First Responder: a professional in the field of forestry who may routinely encounter pests and pathogens of trees before they have been diagnosed or treated.
- Invasive species: any organism that causes ecological or economic harm to any plant in a new environment where it is not native.
- Pathogen: any organism that causes a disease in another living organism.
- Pest: any living organism, other than a vertebrate animal, in any stage of its existence, which is injurious or likely to be injurious to any plant.
Goals
- This plan helps to highlight numerous resources that are already in place and more that might be needed to protect southern pines.
- The plan also articulates roles for diverse organizations to act more strategically within their current capacities to prevent a widespread outbreak by a new pest or disease.
- The plan provides a foundation for forest health specialists and scientists to communicate and collaborate with political, social, and economic scientists to address any emerging high impact non-native pest or disease efficiently and rapidly.
- This plan will be useful to decision makers seeking to better understand the resources needed for adequate biosecurity for a vital economic sector. While it is focused on the southern pine resource, P4 is potentially exportable to other regions as needed.
- At this point, the P4 is a guideline on how best to deal with an invasive high-impact species on pines; It is not yet at the implementation stage. However, as a group, we have provided major recommendations to allow the stakeholders to eventually marshal the resources necessary for the P4 to become live and to be implemented across the region. Such a collaborative effort would allow us to be truly proactive and to stop the invasions before they become a threat to our southern pine resources.
Main phases of the plan
- Communication
- Detection and diagnosis
- Delimitation and assessment
- Response
