PlantwisePlus Blog

Contributed by Roger Day, CABI

With a delicate tap of her wooden gavel, chairperson Ms Kyu-Ock Yim signalled adoption of the report of the 10^th Session of the Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM10) late on Friday afternoon. Delegates applauded; with satisfaction, with relief, in appreciation of the chair? Perhaps a bit of everything.

The report of the 10th Session of the Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM10) was adopted late on Friday afternoon. and CPM11 was provisionally scheduled for April 2016. Source: IPPC facebook

The CPM chair Ms Kyu-Ock Yim will be back to chair CPM 11 in 2016. Source: IPPC facebook

Ms Yim will be back to chair CPM11, which was provisionally scheduled for 4-8 April 2016 in Rome.

But tributes were paid to participants for whom this CPM may well have been their last – at least in their current role. Mr John Hedley (New Zealand) was recognized for his “lifetime commitment to the goals of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC)”, and it’s hard to overestimate the contribution he has made. He was the first chair of the Interim Commission in 1998, since when he has served in numerous roles, latterly as a member of the Standards Committee.

Ms Jane Chard (UK) has also served for many years on the standards committee, but this was her last CPM as committee chair, surely one of the most demanding jobs in any of the CPM’s subsidiary bodies. And Ms Ana Peralta of the IPPC Secretariat was thanked for her major contributions particularly in the area of capacity development.

Many delegates will be back again next year, and CPM11 will be the usual mixture of old friends and new faces. But as CPM10 delegates parted ways, it was a case of “Fare thee well! And if for ever, still for ever, fare thee well” (Byron).