Acacia and eucalypt plantation biosecurity in Southeast Asia – a history, and directions for future research and engagement

ABSTRACT

There are over 7 million ha of eucalypt and acacia plantations in Southeast Asia (SE Asia), comprising both corporate and smallholder plantings. These plantations contribute significantly to national and regional economies and provide diverse ecosystem services. Increased trade, the global movement of people, and a changing climate increase the threat of invasive plantation pests in SE Asia. Here, we review the history of forest biosecurity research in SE Asia to determine what is needed now for the implementation of sustainable biosecurity management systems. Historically, substantial Australian aid funding has been directed at the development of eucalypt and acacia plantations in the region. Attention has been increasing on forest health and biosecurity research since the 1990s, driven by development of the timber plantation estate and the emergence of diseases such as Ceratocystis and insect pests such as Leptocybe invasa. The research agenda has focused on key insect pest and disease taxa and on understanding their biology, topical treatments, breeding responses and land-use planning approaches as means for control and management. We find there is a need for more systemic approaches, including surveillance and pre-emptive strategies, to strengthen timber plantation biosecurity. Greater consideration of socioeconomic and sociocultural contexts will be required to address these challenges. Developing new biosecurity capacity to better detect, and coordinate responses to, forest pest incursions can minimise the potential impacts of invasive pests.

KEYWORDS:

• timber
• forestry
• plant protection
• invasive threats
• risk mitigation
• forest pests
• forest health

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Morag Glen, UTAS, for insightful and useful comments and feedback. A very big thank you to the Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR) for funding this review as part of project FST/2020/123 ‘Building an effective forest health and biosecurity network in South East Asia’. Many thanks to the anonymous reviewers – we really appreciate your time and effort in reviewing this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ This review focuses on Cambodia, Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Thailand and Viet Nam. For readability, we refer to these countries collectively as SE Asia, while recognising that other countries in SE Asia (Brunei Darussalam, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Timor Leste) are not captured. For reference, in the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 (FAO 2020), the Philippines had 381 000 ha of timber plantations, Myanmar had 427 000 ha and Brunei 5000 ha – collectively 5.2% of the recorded timber plantation estate for all of SE Asia in 2020.

² The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines industrial roundwood as ‘all industrial wood in the rough (sawlogs and veneer logs, pulpwood and other industrial roundwood) and, in the case of trade, chips and particles and wood residues’ (Zhang et al. 1997).

³ Search criteria used on 10 January 2022: ALL = ((Indonesia OR Vietnam OR Laos OR Malaysia OR Cambodia OR Thailand) AND (Biosecurity OR Disease OR invasive OR Pest) AND (Forestry OR Plantation OR Timber OR Wood OR Tree) AND (Eucalypt OR Eucalyptus OR Acacia)).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research [FST/2020/123].