Already 3,000 hectares of larch forest – one hectare is about the size of a football pitch – in Wales, Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Northern Ireland are known to be infected by Phytophthora ramorum – sudden oak death – which comes from the same family as the potato blight organism that caused the Irish famines in the 19th century.
Named in the United States, where it has killed millions of oak trees in California, the strain now in the UK had never been seen before by science before it was detected in imported shrubs in a Sussex nursery in 2002.
..."I don't want to scaremonger, but we are very worried," said Roddie Burgess, the head of plant health at the Forestry Commission.
"This disease wasn't even known to science and it shows how people need to be vigilant. Buying locally produced, smaller plants for your gardens wouldn't hurt either; these big imported plants are far more likely to be a risk."
For Hill, 40, who first worked in this wood as a 12-year-old learning forestry from his father, it's difficult to see: "I was due to be coming here to thin this lot, but now we're flattening them all; it's shocking. I'd hoped to be able to bring my son up here, but that's not going to happen now. And they won't be able to replant for a few years, so it's not going to look nice."
"We can put up signs, but can't police it," he said. "People will just ignore the dangers and carry the spores out on their tyres and their boots. People love larch forests because they are open and light and you can see around you and they will really miss them if they go. Everyone is really concerned, especially with the speed at which it kills the trees.
"The next year will be critical. At the moment it's all hands on deck trying to get as many trees down before the spring flush, when they start spreading the infection once more. We've done our bit and got off the mark. It's just down to the phytophthora doing its worst now."
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