Understanding Tree Health under Increasing Climate and Trade Challenges: Social System Considerations

Abstract

Tree and forest health is increasingly influenced by climate change as well as growing globalisation and trade. Climate change enables species to colonise new environments, and species that previously were constrained by native predators are now able to flourish in these new environments with little or no resistance. Additionally, the growing trade in live plants and wood products results in the inadvertent movement of species (such as pests or fungi in soil) from far away areas of the globe. As a result, new forest and tree risks may occur with the potential for significant impacts on forest and tree health. However, managing these impacts through legislation and policy is a challenge, particularly in terms of balancing a predominant free trade policy alongside substantial biosecurity concerns. This Special Issue highlights the social system considerations around forest health: the ways in which specific legislative and policy systems, at the national, regional or local level, aim at regulating or managing increasing invasive species risks and outbreak events; the ways in which policy instruments, technologies or management practices can be developed to manage tree pests and pathogens; and the socioeconomic and cultural implications of pest or disease outbreaks. It illustrates the possibilities and limitations in specific socioeconomic and political systems to manage and limit the impacts of increasing challenges to forest health under climate change and globalisation.