11th Technical Consultation among RPPOs
1999-09-30/10-01, Rome
Technical Consultations among RPPOs
For the last 10 years, representatives of the RPPOs have met with the IPPC Secretariat (or earlier with the FAO Plant Protection Service) in a annual "technical consultation". These meetings were instituted in the late 1980s, when they provided the first opportunity for regular contact between the RPPOs, which previously operated in almost complete isolation from each other. Contact between the executive officers of the RPPOs led to greatly increased exchange of information on pest distribution, regulations, technical programmes etc. In the early 1990s, before the IPPC Secretariat or the CEPM were created, the technical consultation provided an essential forum for contact between the continents in developing the new phytosanitary institutions. Meetings have mainly been held in Rome, but also in San Salvador (SV), Nouméa (NC), Paris (FR) and Brasilia (BR).
Present and future role
The new revised text of the IPPC creates a stronger and more formal cooperation between the RPPOs, and between them and FAO. The Technical Consultations have become formally instituted. However, the creation in 1998 of the Interim Commission on Phytosanitary Measures and its various working groups has formed a new focus for international phytosanitary politics, and the Technical Consultations have to find their role in this new environment.
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The 11th meeting, in Rome, was attended by the Executive Officers of all the RPPOs: APPPC, CAN, COSAVE, CPPC, EPPO, IAPSC, NAPPO, OIRSA and PPPO. For EPPO, Dr Ian Smith (Director-General) was accompanied by Ralf Petzold (Germany, Chairman of EPPO), Dirk Vermaerke (Belgium), Toivo Palm (Estonia), Françoise Petter (France) and Alan Pemberton (UK). Mr Pemberton was elected Chairman of the meeting. For other regions, delegates were present from Australia, Bangladesh, Chile, Costa Rica, India, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Panama, Thailand and Uruguay.
The Meeting agreed Guidelines for the ICPM on the recognition of RPPOs, and proposed provisional procedures for cooperation between RPPOs and the IPPC Secretariat. It encouraged RPPOs to deposit regional standards with the IPPC Secretariat and to propose candidate standards for consideration. It noted topics on which the RPPOs could develop coordinated activities: reporting obligations, biodiversity and genetically modified organisms. It also noted a number of international actions in the coming year on which it invited reports for the next meeting: eradication of Bactrocera carambolae in Central and South America, workshop on Maconellicoccus hirsutus, containment of Diabrotica virgifera in Central Europe. The Meeting recognized that the position and activities of certain of the RPPOs have been unsettled by the new global phytosanitary structure. The member countries of RPPOs are not everywhere clear what they now expect from their organizations. It is a challenge to the Technical Consultations to develop their most useful future activities.