"The strategic plan reflects the considered opinion of both our internal staff and external stakeholders developed over a one-year period. We began with a very broad strategic assessment and finished with a very detailed specific set of action plans to accomplish three strategic goal areas – detection, climate change, and communication." - Steve Patterson (S&PF Assistant Director)
The Alaska Forest Health Protection (FHP) Program works to protect Alaska’s forest and tree resources from damaging outbreaks of insects, diseases, and invasive plants. FHP does this by providing timely survey and monitoring information, and technical and financial assistance, to Federal, State, and private land managers so they can prevent, suppress, and control outbreaks of forest pests. FHP also helps to maintain, enhance, or restore healthy forest conditions and works in partnership with the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and State agencies to detect and eradicate newly introduced exotic organisms.
See our recently published book: "Hazard Trees in Alaska: A Guide to the Identification and Management of Hazard Trees in Alaska" by Lori Trummer and Paul Hennon.
This book was designed to provide managers with basic information about hazard trees. We present the information with a logical flow from hazard tree concepts to recognition, evaluation, and lastly prevention. Hazard profiles of Alaskan trees are included that describe the common defects and a general failure potential for the various tree species. A chapter is included on safe backcountry travel principles around hazard trees. References are included for further information on this topic.
A leaflet designed to bring awareness of hazard trees to the backcountry traveler is available here for download or hardcopies can be obtained from one of our offices.
A discussion of the forests of Alaska and invasive pests follows the introduction. A short description of insects and diseases affecting general parts of a plant follows next and directs the reader to the appropriate insect or disease section. For each insect or disease, a summary of its hosts, distribution, identification, damage, remarks, and references are provided. A specific index of insect or disease by host plant follows each respective section. The handbook concludes with a glossary, bibliography, appendix for submitting insects or diseases for identification, photography and illustration credits, and finally a general index.
Not every insect or disease in Alaska is covered in this handbook. Some are omitted because of limited distribution or minor importance, and others are awaiting more comprehensive surveys and information on their economic or ecological importance. Few chemical suppression measures are included for the organisms covered in this manual because many new control measures are quickly outdated or discarded with new advances, recognition of environmental hazards, or lack of benefit/cost effectiveness. Please refer to the nearest office of the Alaska Cooperative Extension Service or State and Private Forestry, U.S. Forest Service for information concerning specific control measures.
Smaller version (3.1mb) (fuzzy graphics)
Quad maps showing forest damage from the 2010 aerial detection survey. Data represented on these maps are based on aerial observations manually recorded onto a map. Due to the nature of aerial surveys, the data on this map will only provide rough estimates of location, intensity and the resulting trend information for agents detectable from the air. more...
This report reviews our current knowledge of forest health in Alaska. Its purpose is to help resource professionals, land managers, and other decision makers identify and monitor existing and potential forest health risks and hazards. The report is based on data collected in annual aerial detection surveys, ground surveys, permanent plot monitoring efforts, follow-ups to public requests and input, and early detection work. Emphasis is given to damaging agents observed in 2009. Readers need to be mindful that this is not a complete survey of the over 127 million forested acres in Alaska.
This report (10.25 MB) is organized around the status of four categories of damaging agents: insect pests, diseases and declines, abiotic agents and animal damage, and invasive plants.
Several topic areas and appendices that were covered in previous Conditions Reports (i.e., the role of disturbance in ecosystem management, submitting specimens for identification, integrated pest management, world wide web resource.
The green alder sawfly, Monosoma pulveratum (Retzius) a new pest in Alaska, was positively identified in 2009. It was the first record in the U.S.. The combination of this pest with the existing alder mortality poses a growing threat to alder. Read more ....
Alaska is beginning to experience increased non-native plant establishment, spread, and devaluation of its lands. In response to this increasing threat, we developed a ranking system to evaluate the potential invasiveness and impacts of non-native plants to natural areas in Alaska. This ranking system is designed to be a robust, transparent, and repeatable procedure to aid land managers and the broader public in identifying problematic non-native plants and for prioritizing control efforts. Numerous ranking systems exist, but none are suited to predicting negative impacts to natural systems in Alaska. We created a ranking system that incorporated components from other systems, in which species are ranked by a series of questions in four broad categories: ecosystem impacts, biological attributes, distribution, and control measures. In addition, we include a climate screening procedure to evaluate the potential for establishment in three ecogeographic regions of Alaska. As additional information becomes available, the ranks may change over time. Here we present background and justification for this system and include the ranks of 113 non-native species that are in the state or are likely to be introduced in the future. -----> Get the report here
Phytophthora alni subsp. uniformis (PAU) was isolated from soil beneath alder from two riparian areas in 2007. This is the first time this hybrid pathogen has been found in North America. Alder Phytophthora, primarily subsp. alni (PAA), is a well documented lethal root and collar disease of alder in nearly a dozen European countries.
Finding PAU in two remote, unmanaged locations in Alaska is surprising and perplexing; the threat to Alaskan alder from this pathogen is unknown. Monitoring and research related to this pathogen is continuing in 2008. more...
In this book John A. Muir and Paul E. Hennon review how natural disturbances and forest management affect hemlock dwarf mistletoe populations, apparently in predictable ways that can be adapted for forest management.
Muir and Hennon's objectives are to:
With increased ease of transportation, more invasive species have arrived, and are now spreading throughout
Southeast Alaska. The Forest Service, in cooperation with several partners, has
conducted surveys over the last 4 years to understand:
Select Invasive Plants of Alaska - Pocket Guide
The popular pocket guide has been updated and reprinted.
When trying to identify an unknown plant, color photos often help. This pocket guide provides a selection of invasive plants found across Alaska today. This booklet is not intended to take the place of more comprehensive reference guides, but to help those unfamiliar with these species to begin to recognize them, as the first step towards taking action.
Yellow-cedar is an economicly and culturally valuable tree. It has experienced an accelerated rate of mortality resulting in vast landscapes of forest decline in largely pristine forests of Southeast Alaska and Canada since the end of the little ice age in the late 1800s. This website documents our current understanding of the causes, distribution and management of this forest problem. more...
In 2004-2005, under a cooperative agreement between the USDA Forest Service, Southeast Alaska Wilderness Exploration and Discovery (SEAWEAD) conducted a pilot repeat photography study of selected sites in Southeast Alaska. We collected and catalogued historic photographs, then re-took and interpreted a subset of these photos. more...