On the possible impacts of a regulatory change on resource conservation: The case of the plumpox virus in France

Abstract

Preserving natural resources in the context of global change includes looking at how to protect trees, whether in forests or for fruit production, from various epidemic diseases. A change in European regulation presently underway (EU 2016/2031; currently, in 2023, transitional measures are being implemented in France) transfers, from the public authorities to the profession (all the tree growers susceptible to be concerned), the responsibility for detecting plum pox virus, which has the potential to damage virtually all stone fruit orchards, and for eliminating the affected trees. Yet the disease is a viral one, transmitted by a vector (aphids) from tree to tree and from orchard to orchard. Within a few years, fruit from contaminated trees can no longer be marketed. We show here that, in the context of this new regulation, the heterogeneity of the tree growers (due to the size of the orchards, the diversification of the crops, the future of the farm...) can lead to a recrudescence of the disease throughout the stone fruit orchards. This would also imply all kind of negative effects on the economic (employment in the agricultural sector, national trade balance, processing and marketing sector activities...), social and environmental (landscapes...) levels. The results can easily be generalised to any problem of conservation of natural resources whose management is delegated to private stakeholders.