Experts are battling a killer fungus that threatens to devastate huge swathes of British woodland, including the New Forest.
Government ministers are taking urgent action to combat the deadly ash die-back disease, which could kill a third of British trees and is said to pose the biggest threat to UK woods since Dutch elm disease in the 1970s.
Cases of Chalara fraxinea have already been confirmed in Buckinghamshire and East Anglia - and experts fear it could destroy ash trees across the country.
Staff at the Forestry Commission, which manages the New Forest and other woodland areas, have been taken off their normal duties and redeployed in a bid to stamp out the disease.
A ban on importing ash trees into Britain or transporting their saplings around the country comes into force tomorrow.
