Ministers are set to ban imports of sweet chestnut trees to prevent a repeat of the ash dieback crisis threatening to devastate Britain’s countryside.
The planned embargo from affected countries will help protect Britain from a fungal blight which has already killed most of North America’s four billion sweet chestnuts and is prevalent in much of Europe.
The announcement by Environment Secretary Owen Paterson was made following the recommendations of an independent task force set up to look at tree and plant health.
He also intends to implement a national plant health risk register, which would identify new threats from pests and disease, allowing the authorities to take preventative measures to tackle future outbreaks.
There are 44 million sweet chestnuts in Britain, with the tree particularly prevalent in the south-east of the country.
Officials hope the sweet chestnut ban, which they hope to impose before the next planting season in the autumn, will stop a repeat of ash dieback.
Britain’s 80 million ash - one of the nation’s most common trees - are under threat from a deadly fungus which is spread on wind-blown spores, making it almost impossible to eradicate.
Ian Wright, plant health specialist at the National Trust, said it was crucial to keep our stock of sweet chestnut healthy, as the species is one of the main candidates to replace the ash which will be lost.
He said: ‘The risk is that everyone will try to plant sweet chestnut and won’t be able to acquire enough of UK grown sweet chestnut and will look to the Continent. But where is sweet chestnut blight? On the Continent.
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Speaking following the announcement of the ban, Mr Paterson said: ‘There are real concerns about this new disease which could be a real threat. We showed that we were going to be serious on ash.
‘It is the first time that a Government has ever put plant disease on the same level as animal disease.’
Experts hope the sweet chestnut ban which they hope to impose before the next planting season in the autumn, will stop a repeat of ash diebackIan Boyd, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs said the Government has learnt the lessons of ash dieback which was already present before decisive action was taken, and the ban would put Britain ahead of the sweet chestnut blight.
Although pockets of infection have been discovered in Britain, it has so far been successfully tackled.
In contrast, the main hope for ash was trees that are disease resistant.
Head of the task force, Professor Chris Gilligan, said trees were worth £3.5 billion a year to the British economy and called for the appointment of a chief plant health officer to co-ordinate action.
‘We’ve really got to prioritise the threats in terms of the likelihood, the where, when and how they might arrive, what the impact would be economically and for biodiversity and importantly what we could do about it,’ he said.
‘By increasing our understanding of what pests and diseases are the biggest threats and how best to mitigate their impact, we can minimise potentially devastating outbreaks.’
