The closure of Lord Howe Island to non-essential visitors is an attempt to mitigate the spread of the Myrtle Virus, as it can be transmitted via airborne sources such as wind and rain, animals and human activities.

For this reason, declaring the island off-limits to visitors is essential for local authorities to combat the virus. Such outcomes are clearly challenging to tourism-reliant destinations such as Lord Howe Island, especially as it tries to recover after the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The island puts a limit on no more than four hundred visitors a day, which means that the closure could result in cancellations, or postponed travel arrangements for current and future tourists. It should be acknowledged that the closure of islands is not limited to Lord Howe Island. International destinations such as Boracay in the Philippines and Maya Bay in Thailand have been closed to visitors for months and years. This allows the natural environment some time to recover from natural, and human activities, and it acts as a mechanism to support life on land and in the water, in alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

These tie in with governmental action in building sustainability into island ecosystems as they balance relationships with various stakeholders, such as the tourism industry.

Future tourists can also play active roles as citizen scientists to report incidents such as the outbreak of the Myrtle Virus, or other diseases to local authorities.

The plant disease myrtle rust, native to South America, was first detected in Australia on the Central Coast of NSW in April 2010. It is caused by a fungus that belongs to a group of plant pathogens known as the rusts. Rusts are among the most feared of all plant pathogens - they spread rapidly over thousands of kilometres on wind currents and can cause huge losses in plant production. For example, wheat rust research over the past 100 years at the University of Sydney has shown clear evidence of wind-borne rust spores travelling from central Africa to Australia. Losses to wheat production due to rust have been at times in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars.
 
Myrtle rust rapidly invaded the entire east coast of Australia and has caused the near extinction of at least three rainforest species. It was detected at Lord Howe Island in 2016, and eradicated, but has now managed to spread there once again. This second incursion clearly illustrates how incredibly difficult rust diseases are to manage once they are introduced into a new region. A further complication is that it infects a wide range of native plants, some of which hold great cultural significance and/or are endangered.
 
Australia has some of the best plant pathologists in the world and has long been a leader in controlling rust diseases in agriculture. Consequently, sound progress has been made in understanding myrtle rust in the Australian environment. The success of managing the current situation on Lord Howe Island, and in reducing the impact of myrtle rust to Australia’s iconic flora against a backdrop of climate change, will however, rely heavily on gaining a much better understanding of this damaging plant pathogen.