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EPPO Council Colloquium on ‘Plant health and the environment’, Dublin, 2000‐09‐21
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
eppo bulletin
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.327
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1365-2338
pISSN - 0250-8052
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2338.2001.tb00981.x
Subject(s) - phytosanitary certification , biosafety , convention , convention on biological diversity , biodiversity , business , environmental planning , environmental protection , agriculture , political science , international trade , environmental resource management , geography , economic growth , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , law , ecology , economics
The National Plant Protection Organizations of EPPO countries have a basic responsibility to prevent the introduction and spread of pests of plants and plant products. This has been for many years defined by the IPPC (International Plant Protection Convention) and now by its new revised text. The Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures of the World Trade Organization has in the past 10 years aimed to prevent the use of phytosanitary measures as unjustified barriers to trade. In the past 2 years, new constraints have appeared, particularly on account of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). International co‐operation is now developing on biosafety (restricting the movement of potentially dangerous organisms, whether GMOs, alien species or invasive species) and on the protection of the environment and biodiversity as such. The new obligations of countries under the CBD, and the measures which they can take to implement them, overlap to a significant extent with their obligations under the IPPC. The responsibilities and tasks of NPPOs (under Ministries of Agriculture) can at a technical level be extended to cover the concerns of the CBD, but in so doing may conflict with those of the equivalent authorities under the Ministries of the Environment. The aim of the EPPO Council Colloquium in Dublin was to examine these areas of potential overlap and conflict and consider the consequences for the international organizations concerned with plant health (like EPPO) and for the NPPOs.