ATTENTION: Environmental policy writers

15 October 2002
Contact: Sarah Yang
(510) 643-7741
scy@pa.urel.berkeley.edu

WHAT:
"Sudden Oak Death: Implications for Management, Policy and Society," a public lecture sponsored by the University of California Center for Forestry. A plant pathologist for the USDA Forest Service will discuss the challenges of crafting responsible policy for Sudden Oak Death when so little is known about the pathogen causing the disease. She will also address how Sudden Oak Death's "fear factor" may be leading to poor forest policy.

Fear of the pathogen spreading is threatening California's grape and strawberry exports, and is even impacting the state's garbage collection. Continued development of a science-based program for Sudden Oak Death monitoring, research, education and management is critical.

WHEN:
4 p.m., Friday, Oct. 18

WHERE:
Booth Auditorium, UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall). The law school is on Bancroft Way, just west of Piedmont Avenue.

WHO:
Plant pathologist Susan Frankel has been an expert on forest diseases for more than 15 years. She is former chair and current board member of the California Oak Mortality Task Force. She now leads the Sudden Oak Death program for the USDA Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Region.

BACKGROUND:
The talk is part of the S.J. Hall Lectureship in Industrial Forestry, an annual lecture series established at UC Berkeley in 1969. The late Hall graduated from the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University in 1920. He played an important role in the development of industrial forestry in the southern United States in the 1920s and 1930s.

After World War II, he headed west and helped establish in Mendocino County the Gualala Redwood Company, which became a leader in the industrial management of young growth redwood forests. In 1965, he established the Forest Economics Foundation to advance the understanding and practices of sound economic principles among forestry students in colleges across the United States and Canada.