Lecture: The Forest in Danger

On 16 October 2026 at 3.00 pm in the community hall at Hourtin Port, come along to a talk on the topic: ‘The forest under threat: how to protect it from this destructive pest, the nematode’.
The pine nematode, Bursaphelenchus, is native to the United States. For several decades, it has been spreading across the Americas, China and Japan. Then, from the 1990s onwards, it reached Portugal and Spain. On 3 November 2025, it was spotted for the first time in France in the Seignosse forest in the Landes region.
Christophe Plomion’s colleagues, INRAE researchers working at the Pierroton forestry research unit, will present the full scope of their research aimed at characterising the damage caused by this devastating pine forest pest and describe all the control methods they are considering to minimise the damage.
The Forestry Group and all those involved in forest conservation are rallying behind an integrated and coordinated approach to control programmes.
Christophe Plomion is Director of the IRAE’s Pierroton unit.
UMR Biogéco Biodiversity, Genes and Communities, a joint research unit of INRAE and the University of Bordeaux.
He is the scientific director of FORESTT and a member of the executive committee of the ‘Forest Resilience’ research programme, which aims to investigate how forests adapt to climate change, focusing on the phenotypic and molecular plasticity of trees and the genetic diversity of populations.
He is also director of the UMR Biogéco Biodiversity, Genes and Communities, a joint research unit of INRAE and the University of Bordeaux.
Price: Members €5 • Non-members €8