“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
Benjamin Franklin
If weather and fire disasters burst into existence, forest health disasters creep.
Their often slow spread can divert focus to all the other pressing issues that face urban forest managers. Or local government may balk at allocating scarce funds for response to a “disaster” that’s hasn’t yet shown up anywhere near the town’s border.
City leaders tend to focus on the here and now, not the what and when. Where invasive species are concerned, that sort of shortsightedness can be costly. Cities who neglect to plan for looming threats will spend much more to respond and recover than those with strategies and resources already identified and initiated.
Public information campaigns
Amidst all the other demands on their budgets, city staff may not understand that early action on invasives is their least expensive option.
At the same time, neighbors need to understand how their community is vulnerable to invasive pests and diseases.
After the Asian Long-Horned Beetle was discovered in 700 New Jersey trees — 50,000 more trees had to be removed.
It’s better to prepare the community before showing up with chainsaws.
Recruit your team
The players
No single agency, at any level of government, has the diverse staff or the full suite of tools and resources needed to detect, respond and manage the multiple threats to forest health. Even modest success depends on having the people and resources already in place to deal with emerging pests and diseases.
The skills and expertise needed cover a wide range of agencies and professionals. In Washington State all levels of government from federal to local share responsibilities for control of invasive species.
Organizing your own team
You need to bring together people who know where to find the latest information about pests and disease that might invade your community. You need to assign responsibility for detection and response; and, most important, determining what efforts seem to be working, and what aren’t.
No need to reinvent the wheel
Hundreds of communities have done this before you — some successfully, others not so much. What’s common to those who’ve succeeded? All players understand their roles, responsibilities and lines of communication before they respond to looming threats.
Fortunately there is already a system in place that – while not exactly plug-and-play – can be adapted for virtually any sort of disaster, and at multiple scales.
The Incident Command System
Originally developed to manage multi-agency responses to large wildfires, the ICS has evolved into a framework applied to disasters of all kinds. Today, virtually all emergency medical services and disaster response agencies use ICS to manage disasters which demand coordinated action.
The ICS focuses on the importance of clear, concise and targeted internal and external communication; training and retraining to ensure understanding of roles and responsibilities; and ultimately, creation of both organizational and personal networks to build trust and credibility among its members.
FEMA can help with training materials.
Train early. Train often. Act later.
Engage volunteers
It doesn’t take an army of professionals to identify invaders. Residents can and do sound the alarm. In a study of 70 invasive pests in Washington State, researchers found that residents reported them first in 36% of the cases.
In fact, Donna Massey, a Massachusetts homeowner, first discovered the invasive asian longhorned beetle in her own back yard.
Recruiting and training volunteers
Many communities have developed programs that enlist residents — often members of local conservation groups — as citizen scientists. These modest investments can produce dramatic results. Often residents are the first to identify new invasives.
Washington State maintains extensive and comprehensive programs to identify and manage invasive forest pests and diseases. Volunteers play an outsized role in these initiatives.
Volunteer conservation programs already exist in most communities. And often local conservation groups carry the message about invasives. They can become working members of your team with some additional training and education resources tailored to your community’s needs.
Planning and policy
No coach would put together a game plan just before kick-off. That happens during the off-season. The same applies to planning your response to invasive pests and diseases.
Integrated Pest Management
Most plans share a similar foundation; they’re built around the principles of Integrated pest management.
IPM aims to minimize the impact of pests while supporting sustainable practices and maintaining ecosystem balance.
It encompasses a spectrum of approaches communities might use in responding to potential threats. In some cases, the most cost-effective response might be simply to “watch and wait. Moving down the spectrum, some communities might elect to remove afflicted trees, while others choose to apply pesticides on a broader scale.
Key principles of IPM
Identification and Monitoring: Accurate identification of pests and continuous monitoring to make informed decisions.
Setting Action Thresholds: Establishing a point at which pest control action must be taken.
Prevention: Managing the environment to prevent pests from becoming a threat.
Control: Evaluating and using the most effective and least risky control methods, including biological, mechanical, and chemical controls.
Make it law?
Some jurisdictions have chosen to embed IPM principles into their municipal and/or state codes. Having a legal basis for action makes it easier to determine the best response to any given threat and promotes public understanding of why more controversial actions might be needed.
Austin TX has committed to IPM and mandates compliance by developers, builders and property owners.
Funding
Management costs millions
Maybe billions!
No single municipality can set aside funds to deal with disasters like the invasions of Emerald Ash Borers or Asian Longhorn Beetles on its own.
Emerald Ash Borer
Costs nationally exceed $10 billion
- Minneapolis lost 40,000 trees, 20% of its public canopy
- St. Paul and Minneapolis have spent in total $50 million to date
- Both cities have a multi-year backlog for stump removal, at an estimated cost of $200 per tree
Asian Longhorned Beetle
- New York City removed 16,000 trees to “beat the beetle.” It’s a work in progress.
- The cost to remove a single infested tree can range from $500 to $5,000.
- New Jersey removed almost 22,000 trees before it declared the pest eradicated in 2013.
Share the burden
Rarely will you need to depend on purely local resources. Because invasive species don’t respect municipal or state boundaries, significant resources and support may be available from state and federal agencies.
Don't create when you can imitate
There’s no point to reinventing the “wheel” unless you can’t find one. So the best place to look for guidance may be states and cities with already strong forest health programs. Public Citizen has catalogued some of the most successful city programs aimed at invasives.
Among them, Washington State stands out.
WISC State Pest Readiness Playbook
A comprehensive guide to the process and actions that underlay successful forest pest programs. The Playbook includes a comprehensive tool that can measure your community’s capacity to mount its own tree health initiatives. Created by the Washington State Invasive Species Council.
Not every community will need all the resources covered by the tool or have the capacity to manage a comprehensive program. But even a quick review can reveal where changes and improvements are possible – and if you fall short – how and from whom you can find the help you need.
