Defra, the Forestry Commission and the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales are now considering how to manage Phytophthora ramorum and P. kernoviae in the future. Public Consultations are therefore being run on the future management of risks from these diseases, the deadline for comments is 10 October 2008. The reason you should consider submitting your views, as a collection holder, is that one option being proposed is to meet EU minimum requirements on control of P. ramorum and remove all controls against P. kernoviae, other than maintaining a ban on the movement of infected plants to other countries. - in essence all control of the disease would cease, and it will be allowed to run its course. For gardens in the south-west with Rhododendron collections this could prove catastrophic.
See the Defra page for full details, and how to submit a view.

The European Botanic Gardens Consortium is undertaking two initiatives which will benefit gardens in these islands
The first is an Invasive Aliens Alert page, which is collating information so as to inform collection holders about the potential invasiveness of species across Europe so as to identify problem taxa in an easy to use manner (above right).
The second is to try and develop a pan-European Seed list, as mentioned in Newsletter No.35 at the end of last year.