For SOD, there's actually a fairly simple preventative step everyone could take that is poorly publicized.
It wasn't until I happened to be out with someone who does environmental impact studies for the army corp of engineers that I learned how easily SOD can be transported from place to place through the soil that collects on clothing. Most of us wash after a trip outside, but we should be bleaching our shoes. The pathogen is quite hardy and can survive the seasons without a plant host. Without a thorough wash, the next trip we take is likely to drop off a few spores, risking its introduction to plants we touch and the watershed.
That said, this is just one of many preventative steps, and one that's unlikely to be broadly adopted. We're likely too far down the road already for a lot of impacted forests.
This sounds very familiar. In New Zealand we have a lot of trouble with "didymo"[1], an invasive algae which thrives in cold freshwater environments, clogging up rivers with lots of green slime. It is very easily spread by humans doing recreational activities such as fishing and boating, inadvertently carrying it from one place to the next.
As such we've had intensive public education campaigns here, instructing people to carefully clean down things like boots and boat hulls with either hot water or bleach solution[2]. Its spread continues, though perhaps less quickly than without such a campaign.
It wasn't until I happened to be out with someone who does environmental impact studies for the army corp of engineers that I learned how easily SOD can be transported from place to place through the soil that collects on clothing. Most of us wash after a trip outside, but we should be bleaching our shoes. The pathogen is quite hardy and can survive the seasons without a plant host. Without a thorough wash, the next trip we take is likely to drop off a few spores, risking its introduction to plants we touch and the watershed.
That said, this is just one of many preventative steps, and one that's unlikely to be broadly adopted. We're likely too far down the road already for a lot of impacted forests.