Primary goals

• Establish an effective and sustainable forest health and biosecurity network in SE Asia to improve risk management for invasive forest pests and diseases.
• Improve surveillance, diagnostics, and reporting to enhance biosecurity; develop a biosecurity network which can apply to other developing countries in future.
• Implement an app with an integrated field guide to identify/report regional pests and diseases; evaluate multilures for beetles in the pilot trapping phase.

Key findings to date

1. High-Risk Site Surveillance (HRSS) has gathered crucial data on forest pest species, with the first round of diagnostics providing insights to improve surveillance techniques and trap placements.
2. Each country has different biosecurity capabilities and needs, so customised training and support is important, especially in lower capacity countries like Laos and Cambodia. 
3. There is a need for gender inclusion in biosecurity. Gender issues in biosecurity are largely overlooked, and addressing this gap will be crucial to improving both project outcomes and broader forest biosecurity efforts.

Progress

This project commenced in 2022 and was completed in 2025.

Lead researchers

• Madaline Healey
• Simon Lawson
• Harriot Beazley

Project funded by

Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)

Sustainable Development Goals

This project works towards these UN Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 5: Gender equality
• SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
• SDG 15: Life on Land