Paper short abstract:

Woodland managers and researchers in the UK are keenly aware of the global interconnections that inevitably shape their local woodlands. Do microbial trade arrivals and local adaptations shape a more-than-local conservation approach suited to the Anthropocene?

Paper long abstract:

Woodland managers and researchers in the UK are keenly aware of the global interconnections that inevitably shape their local woodlands. As British ideas and ideals around the local ancient woodland landscapes shape conservation goals and rewilding efforts (Lorimer et al. 2015), the non-native or imported status of particular woodland pests is thus often emphasized as buffer zones are set up and eradication efforts are underway. Microbial arrivals of the international trade cannot always be eradicated, forcing Anthropocene conservation to constantly seek to adapt to global microbial networks. Examining the impact of two microbial pests on woodland conservation gives some insight on how local and global interspecies interactions shape woodlands. Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, the fungus responsible for ash dieback, is a traveller of the anthropocene, arriving in the UK through the seedling nurseries if the international plant trade (FAO 2014) carrying the tree plantation into the woodland (Tsing 2017). Phytophthora ramorum, an oomycete causing blight in different trees, evolved to infect larches in south-west England. Both are considered impossible to eradicate their impacts have become increasingly visible (treecouncil.org 2022, Scottish Forestry 2023). Their "encroaching unlivability" (Tsing 2017) is encountered by woodland managers regularly.

Interviews with woodland estate managers and tree health experts as well as archival research with tree conservation groups and Scottish and English government agencies explore the multispecies networks surrounding ash dieback and ramorum disease and question the (non-)locality of woodland microbes.