Assessing awareness of tree pests and pathogens amongst tree professionals: A pan-European perspective

Abstract

Tree professionals play an important role in protecting forests against invasive pests. Their awareness of pests and knowledge of how they spread is likely to be a key component of effective detection, eradication and management measures, but very little is known about awareness levels of this stakeholder group. To address this important evidence gap, a questionnaire survey of tree professionals was carried out across nine European countries. Results from 392 tree professionals show relatively low levels of self-reported awareness for a number of pests and pathogens. Levels of awareness rise with increasing age as well as frequency of visits to forests. Awareness also appeared higher where pests were present in the respondent's country. There was a high level of support for purchasing plant material from accredited sources. Barriers to changing behaviours include financial and resource pressures but also the perceived behaviour of others. Tree professionals utilise multiple sources to gain information about tree pests but the internet was the most popular. A considerable amount of pest information is already available online and this study recommends that different approaches to raising awareness be trialled, including the use of experienced tree professionals as knowledge brokers and exploring new ways of using digital technologies as a learning tool. Crown Copyright (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Biosecurity; Forest pests; Survey, awareness, professionals; Europe

Published in

Forest Policy and Economics
2016, volume: 70, pages: 164-171

SLU Authors

• Lindelöw, Åke

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Associated SLU-program

Future Forests (until Jan 2017)
Forest
SLU Future Forests
SLU Plant Protection Network

UKÄ Subject classification

Forest Science

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2016.06.030

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/79480