Overview
- Regional officials re-evaluated the delimitation on Friday, extending surveillance to about 400,000 hectares across 307 communes after new laboratory‑confirmed cases in the Landes and Béarn.
- Since the first French detection at Seignosse in November 2025, additional infected trees have been confirmed at Orthevielle, Angresse, Lescar and more recently at Morcenx, Artix and Lons.
- Operational work under an emergency state contract has already cut, chipped and thermally treated roughly 12,000 declining trees by the end of August, with strict closed‑container transport and high‑heat processing required for removed wood.
- Draaf Nouvelle-Aquitaine says it no longer carries out routine 500‑metre clear‑cuts and will concentrate on selective removal of symptomatic trees plus intensified aerial and ground mapping to better target interventions.
- Researchers and forest professionals have criticized blanket clear‑cutting and called for trapping and targeted felling, and an Inrae confined laboratory plus an EU audit and genotype tests are pending to clarify origins and shape next steps.