{"id":1799,"date":"2020-07-21T13:09:23","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T13:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nivemnic.us\/?p=1799"},"modified":"2020-07-22T16:08:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-22T16:08:09","slug":"year-of-plant-health-opportunity-to-review-international-phytosanitary-programs-effectiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nivemnic.us\/?p=1799","title":{"rendered":"\u201cYear of Plant Health\u201d – Opportunity to Review International Phytosanitary Programs\u2019 Effectiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Rome – site of the FAO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has declared 2020 to be  the International Year of Plant Health<\/a>. APHIS, U.N. FAO, and others planned celebratory events — most now postponed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The designation prompts consideration of whether the current global phytosanitary system \u2013 created in 1995 \u2013 is succeeding in preventing movement of invasive plant pests and invasive plants. Join me in this evaluation!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I focus on evaluating the most widespread invasive pests killing trees \u2013 and the pathways on which they travel. Some of the most damaging tree pests, of course, were moved around the world decades ago. But too many have been transported after the modern plant health system was developed in the mid-20th<\/sup> Century with the adoption of the original International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) in 1951.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, this is also the period when trade volume exploded, resulting in new source countries, new products, and new technologies that facilitated newly rapid movement of goods and accompanying pests. See my earlier blog here<\/a> and the book by Marc Levinson, The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. It is <\/strong>well-documented that rising trade volumes, new trade connections, new products have and will continue to exacerbate unintended movement<\/a> of species (Seebens et al.<\/em>, 2018).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The phytosanitary regime was massively revised in the mid-1990s through adoption of the World Trade Organization and the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards (SPS Agreement). Two principal changes were to constrain individual countries\u2019 freedom to establish their own phytosanitary regulations and to require evidence of risk rather than allowing action on the basis of \u201cif in doubt, keep it out\u201d. I have written a critique of the new system in Fading Forests II. See Chapter 3, available here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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USDA officials burn infested cherry trees – gifts from Japan
Washington, D.C. 1912<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Has the new regime allowed spread of pests, as I predicted in my critique?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the explosion of global trade has made prevention of species introductions far more difficult. So the rising numbers of introductions cannot be blamed entirely on the SPS Agreement. Still, it is vital to review pest status in order to see whether the SPS Agreement is succeeding in protecting Earth\u2019s flora. Here, I am looking at only one type of bioinvader. Many more types need to be evaluated, even among plants and plant pests. Nor do I pretend that my list is comprehensive even in the category I focus on \u2013 tree-killing insects, nematodes, and pathogens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My definition of \u201cglobal invader\u201d is an insect, pathogen, or nematode that has been moved from its known or probable place of origin to at least two novel continents or widespread island groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the SPS Agreement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, many highly damaging forest insects and pathogens spread widely before the eruption of global trade in the second half of the 20th<\/sup> Century. Examples include several pathogens:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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American chestnut bred to be resistant to blight
photo by F.T. Campbell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n