Scotland's Plant Health Centre - Key principles to minimise plant health risks

PROMOTE WIDESPREAD UNDERSTANDING AND AWARENESS OF PLANT HEALTH THREATS Informed individuals and businesses can minimise threats to plant health and reduce the unwanted impacts of pests and diseases. Consistent messages across all sectors will help encourage collective and individual actions. • Develop and support plant health education and training programmes to meet business and stakeholder needs • Raise consumer and trade awareness of risks to plant health and the benefits of good biosecurity practice • Encourage public awareness of pests and diseases, the importance of individual actions and how to report concerns • Promote wide awareness of the value of Scotland’s plants, the connectedness of actions and why plant health matters (e.g. value of natural environment, amenity, horticulture, agriculture, forestry etc), and the importance of monitoring and surveillance Positive activities which already exemplify this principle • Plant Healthy Scheme • Fight against Blight Allotment Testing scheme • Communications campaigns such as “Don’t risk it” and “Tree killer on the loose” • Volunteer projects and citizen science campaigns (e.g. Observatree and SpittleBugHunt) Further activities which could be taken to underpin this principle • More active messaging at all levels from schools to consumers using a variety of communication channels including printed material, internet, television and displays at venues and transport hubs • Provision of promotional materials across all areas of plant production from large nurseries through to small specialist growers • Greater engagement of key influencers (e.g. media presenters on gardening shows)