 My name is Alison Dyke and I work at the York Centre of SEI as a research associate and recently my work is focused on biosecurity and plant health and particularly public engagement in those issues. The issue is that we have a lot of new pests and diseases coming into this country which can affect our trees and other plants in quite serious ways. In the UK we have relatively low diversity of tree species so if you have a pest or disease that affects the health of one species quite seriously then that can have a very big impact on tree cover in the UK. The method that we're using is a citizen science survey so it's a survey that anybody can get involved in, any member of the public. It's quite a simple survey, it asks people to survey trees in their local area to record the kind of circumstances that they're finding the tree in which tells us a bit about how that tree is managed. It asks people to record general indicators of tree health, so how dense the canopy is, whether there's any yellowing or browning on the leaves, which gives us a good general impression of how healthy that tree is. And then it also asks people to look for specific tree species and pests and diseases in association with them. And that gives us a much better idea of the distribution of pests and diseases through the UK and also what kinds of trees are particularly vulnerable. What's particularly interesting about this particular citizen science survey is that there's been a lot of policy interest in it. As tree and plant health has become a live public issue it's obviously something that the government wants to do something about and to be seen to be doing something about. And it's an issue that they want to engage the public in, partly because they would like it to be something which is higher in the public consciousness so that when people are undertaking behaviours that might be risky, so when they're in woodland areas or when they're buying plants they can try and ensure that their behaviour is lower risk so they're considering where plants are coming from and whether there might be any risks associated with them. If they're moving from one woodland area to another then they can think about whether they might need to clean their footwear for instance between visits. So raising that issue in the public consciousness is important but also it's very important that we know more about the circumstances that we find these pests and diseases in. Usually because they're coming from quite a different ecological context where they're originally found and when they come to the UK they can behave quite differently so it's important to know how they will behave in a UK environment. There are three sorts of impacts from this work. Firstly the data that's generated and that goes to Forest Research who are the government agency that's responsible for research on forestry in this country. The second impact is really in terms of collaborative working. It's brought together a group of institutions that haven't worked together previously and so that's quite important because it's generating new knowledge and experience for those institutions. The third sort of impact is in terms of engagement. So there has been a loss of engagement in this survey from members of the public and their understanding of tree health as an issue is improved as a result. So consequently there may be changes in behaviour in terms of buying plants or visiting forest areas.