As much as the ISPM-15 roll-out has caused a colossal headache for the pallet industry, with its almost vaudevillian progression of announced and then retracted implementation dates, it is nonetheless shaping up as a major accomplishment.
The magnitude of the undertaking struck me when I arrived at the IPPC Workshop on the Practical Application of ISPM No. 15, which was held in
In other words, the period of policy development is over. Now it is time to dance and get it implemented globally. Forget about whether or not we are doing the right thing. It is time to do the thing right. And while richer countries are well on their way to rolling out ISPM-15, many of the lesser developed countries are still at various stages of readiness; some of them have barely started.
The idea behind the workshop was for nations to share their implementation experiences, and in particular to support developing nations in getting their own national certification and monitoring programs up and running.
“What sense does it make if only some countries implement it?” observed Dr. Bruce McTavish, a facilitator. “It is essential that this standard be implemented by all countries.”
The workshop was an important step in that direction. Other similar workshops, although of a regional nature, have been held in
ISPM-15 was created to be a “simple, harmonized approach to protect the world’s forests from the pests borne in solid wood packaging,” said the organizer of the workshop, Dr. Eric Allen of the Canadian Forest Service.
The simple idea is that solid wood packaging, sporting a globally recognized stamp, could freely support global trade while giving importing nations a degree of confidence that accepting the packaging would not put their forests at risk. It sounds simple enough, but when you gather diverse delegates from around the world, it suddenly becomes a little clearer what an enormous challenge the “harmonized” implementation of ISPM-15 has been.
As I sat in on the workshop, I couldn’t help but think of a much smaller meeting held almost 30 years ago by competing local grocery distributors in
As a representative of the pallet industry, I couldn’t help but be pleased at the way that plant protection officials have turned to the wooden pallet industry as a vital partner in the process. The pallet industry has played an important consultative role throughout the process, and at the workshop, countries from around the world were urged to get their domestic pallet industries involved in the implementation process. (In some countries, however, the pallet industry is very rudimentary and cannot make much of a contribution.)
Secondly, the process itself may shed a glimpse of light onto the kind of process that might lead to other initiatives to harmonize other aspects of pallet usage or pallet standards in international supply chains. While the ISPM-15 shows how unwieldy and complicated the process can be, it nonetheless demonstrates that standardization efforts on a global scale might be possible through inclusive international dialogue, government support, and stakeholder involvement.
There definitely needs to be a catalyst, however. The urgency in the case of ISPM-15 is forest protection. In other areas, such as international standards setting, there is as of yet no blazing crisis or dramatic proof of international benefit to galvanize international interest. That ultimately will be an important part of the dance.
Something to shout about – traditional native dancers performed at the opening ceremony of the IPPC Workshop that brought together delegates from 86 countries with a goal of harmonious implementation of ISPM-15.
