Proceedings of the Sudden Oak Death Fourth Science Symposium, June 15-18,2009, Santa Cruz, California

In 2008, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Forestry Commission, and the Welsh Assembly Government held a policy and science review on P. ramorum and P. kernoviae, including a public consultation. This examined the historic and current situation as well as the U.K. PRAs for both pathogens (Sansford and Woodhall 2007, Sansford 2008), and proposed options for management of these pathogens in the future. The public consultation offered three options: (i) continue to meet EC minimum requirements on the control of P. ramorum and remove all controls against P. kernoviae other than maintaining a ban on the movement of infected plants to other countries; (ii) undertake an enhanced programme of activity aimed at reducing the level of inoculum of both species to epidemiologically insignificant levels; (iii) continue containment/eradication activity with the objective of containing the spread whilst gathering further evidence prior to decisions on long-term action.