New paper co-authored by FORSAID partners examines the management of forest pests without clear-cutting

A scientific article comparing the cost-effectiveness of clear-cutting and tree-selective cutting for eradicating infestations of the pine wood nematode (PWN) was released in March 2026, with three participants in the FORSAID project listed as co-authors. Titled "How to eradicate an invasive forest pest without clear-cutting", the output was listed in Issue 3, Volume 63 of the Journal of Applied Ecology.

The researchers behind it compared the cost (of intervention and loss of income from timber products) and effectiveness (removal of infected trees) of clear-cutting (CC) and selective cutting of the PWN-infected trees (SC), considering different methods of surveillance: visual ground surveys and insect trap networks (as currently done) as well as aerial surveys combined with AI-assisted image analysis (as currently tested in the FORSAID project).

Consequently, the following conclusions were drawn:

  • Aerial surveillance performs better than ground surveillance.
  • Eradication of PWN is only possible (regardless of the management strategy - CC or SC) if surveillance is carried out several times a year by aircraft with high detection efficiency at the moments when trees infested by the nematode show symptoms, prompting timely host removal. Under these optimal conditions, SC costs as much as 200 times less than CC as it avoids the loss of income from non-infested trees' timber products.   
  • Under non-optimal conditions of symptomatic tree detection, eradication is unfeasible regardless of the management strategy. In this case, the objective is to reduce the impact of the nematode by containing the disease. SC still offers the best cost-effectiveness ratio.
  • These results show that improving surveillance effectiveness is essential in order to effectively limit the establishment and spread of PWN.


In a broader sense, development of remote sensing combined with AI will improve the effectiveness of forest surveillance and stakeholders' ability to control or eradicate forest pests. This is the ultimate objective of the second work package of the FORSAID project.

The paper can be accessed here. The full library of FORSAID publications is available on this page.