Foreword: Innovation and dedication underpin management of sudden oak death (Phytophthora ramorum) in California and Oregon forests

This special issue of Forest Phytophthoras serves as part of the proceedings from the Sixth Sudden Oak Death Science Symposium held June 21 - 23, 2016 at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, CA, USA. The symposium marked almost 16 years to the day that David Rizzo (UC Davis) and Matteo Garbelotto (UC Berkeley) identified the cause of sudden oak death to be a previously unknown Phytophthora species, later named Phytophthora ramorum. Many of the approximately 200 participants at the conference have dedicated the past 15 years, a large portion of their life’s work, to protect U.S. forests from this new invasive pathogen