Forest pests, like the emerald ash borer, the spruce budworm and the mountain pine beetle, can threaten Canada’s forests. From December 4-6, 2018, forest pest management researchers, managers, and practitioners gathered for the National Forest Pest Management Forum, the largest and most significant gathering of its kind in Canada.
Organized by Natural Resources Canada, the forum allows participants from across Canada to share information on current and future pest conditions, detection, control and mitigation, environmental issues, as well as to discuss new technologies and the latest research findings. This year’s agenda covers a wide variety of topics in the management of pests and diseases in our forests.
Also included in the Pest Forum was the topic of urban forest research. With links to public health, climate change mitigation and natural infrastructure development, urban forest ecosystem research is an area of growing interest. One example of innovative research in this field is the use of Google street view to characterize the composition of street trees in urban centres. This provide planners and urban forest managers an opportunity to provide estimates of the costs that would result from infestation by forest invasive alien species such as emerald ash borer, Asian longhorned beetle, and oak wilt.