The UK needs to develop effective policy responses to the spread of tree pathogens and pests. This has been given the political urgency following the media and other commentary associated with the arrival of a disease that causes ‘dieback’ of European Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) - a tree species with deep cultural associations. In 2014 the UK government published a plant biosecurity strategy and linked to this invested in research to inform policy. This paper reports the findings of a survey of informed UK publics on the acceptability of various potential strategies to deal with ash dieback, including “no action”. During the summer of 2015, we conducted a face-to-face survey of 1152 respondents attending three major countryside events that attract distinct publics interested in the countryside: landowners & land managers; naturalists and gardeners. We found that UK publics who are likely to engage discursively and politically (through letter writing, petitions etc.) with the issue of ash dieback a) care about the issue, b) want an active response, c) do not really distinguish between ash trees in forestry or ecological settings, and d) prefer traditional breeding solutions. Further that e) younger people and gardeners are open to GM breeding techniques, but f) the more policy-empowered naturalists are more likely to be anti-GM. We suggest that these findings provide three ‘steers’ for science and policy: 1) policy needs to include an active intervention component involving the breeding of disease-tolerant trees, 2) that the development of disease tolerance using GM-technologies could be part of a tree-breeding policy, and 3) there is a need for an active dialogue with publics to manage expectations on the extent to which science and policy can control tree disease or, put another way, to build acceptability for the prospect that tree diseases may have to run their course.

中文翻译：

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制定公众可接受的树木健康政策：英国感兴趣的公众对树木育种解决方案的看法

英国需要针对树木病原体和害虫的传播制定有效的政策应对措施。在媒体和其他与导致欧洲白蜡（Fraxinus excelsior）“枯死”的疾病的到来有关的评论之后，这已被赋予政治紧迫性 - 一种具有深厚文化关联的树种。2014 年，英国政府发布了一项植物生物安全战略，并与此相关，投资于研究以告知政策。本文报告了对知情的英国公众进行的一项调查结果，该调查结果表明，应对灰烬枯死的各种潜在策略的可接受性，包括“不采取行动”。2015 年夏天，我们对参加三项主要农村活动的 1152 名受访者进行了面对面调查，这些活动吸引了对农村感兴趣的不同公众：土地所有者和土地管理者；博物学家和园丁。我们发现英国公众可能在讨论和政治上（通过写信、请愿等）参与灰烬枯死问题 a) 关心这个问题，b) 想要积极回应，c) 并没有真正区分灰烬林业或生态环境中的树木，并且 d) 更喜欢传统的育种解决方案。此外，e) 年轻人和园丁对转基因育种技术持开放态度，但 f) 政策授权越多的博物学家更有可能反对转基因。我们建议这些发现为科学和政策提供了三个“舵手”：1) 政策需要包括涉及培育抗病树木的积极干预成分，2) 使用转基因技术发展抗病能力可能是其中的一部分植树政策，