PERSONALITY PROFILE
We have seen cases where a new insect pest that nobody has ever seen before appears in Israel , and within eight years that insect spread to every corner of the world where Eucalyptus trees are grown . We are seeing a trend of increasing movement of this kind . The problem is that to breed for resistance or to develop mechanisms to deal with a new pest takes years . If you deal with one new pest every once in a while , you have time to respond , but if you are dealing with a new pest every year or two , one simply does not
have the time to continuously change practices , to breed for resistance or to develop treatments .
There is a real threat that this escalation in the numbers of pests could overwhelm the mechanisms we have to deal with them . We have seen this with Covid-19 . Unfortunately , such impacts on plant health can be as devastating . There are examples with pests and diseases in different parts of the world have completely removed certain plant species from ecosystems , sometimes across its native distribution .
How should we deal with those threats ? We have to be prepared . There must be foresight and early warning mechanisms in place . We must have plans in place of how one might respond when the predictable things happen . You cannot predict everything , unfortunately , but there are some major patterns that are consistent .
It is critical for us to build and strengthen structures that will give us an ability to respond to these future happenings , both through local capacity and through strong international networks . There is no way we can deal with this global threat alone – neither as individual companies , nor as a country . It is essential that we build not only the national networks amongst sectors such as academia , government , and industry , but also the international networks that will allow us to do that . Those are some of the things that we focus on at FABI and where the value lies that we provide the industry with .
How do pests and pathogens affect the quality of timber ? Not all fungi that infect wood will affect the structural quality of the timber . The value of the wood can be affected if infecting fungi stains the wood . Some insects that tunnel in wood and fungi that degrade wood , will damage or weaken the wood structure . Wood can be treated to prevent such damage .
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