Past Meetings

DESCRIPTION:

Once a new pest is detected, how do the National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPOs) in the NAPPO region make the decision as to whether they will regulate, eradicate, manage, or take no action on the pest?

BACKGROUND:

All NPPOs have the need to efficiently and consistently evaluate new pest detections in order to make regulatory decisions. Several International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPMs) have specific requirements on evaluating pest status (e.g., ISPMs 2, 5, 8, 11) that can influence the decision by NPPOs to regulate pests and take action on imported commodities.

Determining the appropriate response to a new pest is a complex process for NPPOs. When making that determination, NPPO’s need to consider economics, feasibility, and tools for eradication, availability of detection and identification tools and capacity to use these tools, as well as stakeholder interests.

The purpose of this symposium is to help NAPPO member countries understand the various internal processes and procedures when each NPPOs decides whether to eradicate, manage, or deregulate a newly detected pest. Recent country-specific programs can be used as examples - Plum Pox Virus, boll weevil, various species of fruit flies, citrus pests, emerald ash borer, cactus moth - where determinations made by each NPPO are based on various considerations and has led to different outcomes.

AUDIENCE INTEREST:

The topic relates directly to NAPPO’s Strategic Goal 5 – to Promote and maintain the scientific and technical basis of NAPPO plant protection activities and phytosanitary measures and also has its bases in several international plant health standards including ISPM 2 (Framework for pest risk analysis), ISPM 5 (Glossary of Phytosanitary Terms), ISPM 8 (Determination of pest status in an area), and ISPM 11 (Pest Risk Analysis for Quarantine Pests).

This symposium attempts to address the needs of NPPOs to balance budgets, consider economic and political impacts, as well as the state of the science when evaluating a new pest detection in previously non-infested areas. The expected interested audience will include policymakers, leaders of NPPOs, technical personnel, and various stakeholders (e.g. States, Provinces, and industry sectors).

Questions to be explored, among others, include: What data influences the type and level of response to a new pest? What are the challenges and possible outcomes after a pest evaluation is complete?