PHYTOSANITARY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS (ISPM 5)

Absorbed dose: Quantity of radiating energy absorbed per unit of mass of a specified target.

Additional declaration: A statement that is required by an importing country to be entered on a phytosanitary certificate and which provides specific additional information on a consignment in relation to regulated pests.

Area: An officially defined country, part of a country or all or parts of several countries.

Area endangered: See endangered area.

Area of low pest prevalence: An area, whether all of a country, part of a country, or all or parts of several countries, as identified by the competent authorities, in which a specific pest occurs at low levels and which is subject to effective surveillance, control or eradication measures.

Bark: The layer of a woody trunk, branch or root outside the cambium.

Bark free wood: Wood from which all bark, except ingrown bark around knots and bark pockets between rings of annual growth, has been removed.

Biological control agent: A natural enemy, antagonist or competitor, or other organism, used for pest control.

Buffer zone: An area surrounding or adjacent to an area officially delimited for phytosanitary purposes in order to minimize the probability of spread of the target pest into or out of the delimited area, and subject to phytosanitary or other control measures, if appropriate.

Bulbs and tubers: A commodity class for dormant underground parts of plants intended for planting (includes corms and rhizomes).

Chemical pressure impregnation: Treatment of wood with a chemical preservative through a process of pressure in accordance with an official technical specification.

Clearance of a consignment: Verification of compliance with phytosanitary regulations.

Commission: The Commission on Phytosanitary Measures established under Article The Article  XI (IPPC 1997).

Commodity: A type of plant, plant product, or other article being moved for trade or other purpose.

Commodity class:  A category of similar commodities that can be considered together in phytosanitary regulations.

Glossary of phytosanitary terms: A category of similar commodities that can be considered together in phytosanitary regulations.

Commodity pest list: A list of pests occurring in an area which may be associated with a specific commodity.

Compliance procedure (for a consignment): Official procedure used to verify that a consignment complies with phytosanitary import requirements or phytosanitary measures related to transit.

Confinement (of a regulated article): Application of phytosanitary measures to a regulated article to prevent the escape of pests.

Consignment: A quantity of plants, plant products or other articles being moved from one country to another and covered, when required, by a single phytosanitary certificate (a consignment may be composed of one or more commodities or lots).

Consignment in transit: A consignment which passes through a country without being imported, and that may be subject to phytosanitary measures (formerly country of transit).

Containment: Application of phytosanitary measures in and around an infested area to prevent spread of pest.

Contaminating pest: A pest that is carried by a commodity and, in the case of plants and plant products , does not infest those  plants or plant products.

Contamination: Presence in a commodity, storage place, conveyance or container, of pests or other regulated articles, not constituting an infestation (see infestation).

Control (of a pest): Suppression, containment or eradication of a pest population.

Controlled area: A regulated area which an NPPO has determined to be the minimum area necessary to prevent spread of a pest from a quarantine area.

Corrective action plan (in an area): Documented plan of phytosanitary actions to be implemented in an area officially delimited for phytosanitary purposes if a pest is detected or a tolerance level is exceeded or in the case of faulty implementation of officially established procedures.

Country of origin (of a consignment of plant products): Country where the plants from which the plant products are derived were grown.

Country of origin (of a consignment of plants): Country where the plants were grown.  

Country of origin (of regulated articles other than plants and plant products): Country where the regulated articles were first exposed to contamination by pests.

Cut flowers and branches: A commodity class for fresh parts of plants intended for decorative use and not for planting.

Debarked wood: Wood that has been subjected to any process that results in the removal of bark (Debarked wood is not necessarily bark – free wood).

Delimiting survey: Survey conducted to establish the boundaries of an area considered to be infested by or free from a pest.

Detection survey: Survey conducted in an area to determine if pests are present.

Detention: Keeping a consignment in official custody or confinement, as a phytosanitary measure (see quarantine).

Devitalization: A procedure rendering plants or plant products incapable of germination, growth or further reproduction.

Dose mapping: Measurement of the absorbed dose distribution within a process load through the use of dosimeters placed at specific locations within the process load.

Dunnage: Wood packaging material used to secure or support a commodity but which does not remain associated with the commodity.

Ecosystem: A dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their abiotic environment interacting as a functional unit.

Efficacy (of a treatment): A defined, measurable, and reproducible effect by a prescribed treatment.

Emergency action: A prompt phytosanitary action undertaken in a new or unexpected phytosanitary situation.

Emergency measure: A phytosanitary measure established as a matter of urgency in a new or unexpected phytosanitary situation. An emergency measure may or may not be a provisional measure.

Endangered area: An area where ecological factors favour the establishment of a pest whose presence in the area will result in economically important loss.

Entry (of a consignment): Movement through a point of entry into an area.

Entry (of a pest): Movement of a pest into an area where it is not yet present, or present but not widely distributed and being officially controlled.

Equivalence (of phytosanitary measures): The situation where, for a specified pest risk, different phytosanitary measures achieve a contracting party’s appropriate level of protection.

Eradication: Application of phytosanitary measures to eliminate a pest from an area [formerly eradicate].

Establishment (of a pest): Perpetuation, for the foreseeable future, of a pest within an area after entry [formerly established].

Field: A plot of land with defined boundaries within a place of production on which a commodity is grown.

Find free: To Inspect a consignment, field or place of production and consider it to be free from a specific pest.

Free from (of a consignment, field or place of production): Without pests (or a specific pest) in numbers or quantities that can be detected by the application of phytosanitary procedures.

Fresh: Living, not dried, deep-frozen or otherwise conserved

Fruits and vegetables: A commodity class for fresh parts of plants intended for consumption or processing and not for planting.

Fumigation: Treatment with a chemical agent that reaches the commodity wholly or primarily in a gaseous state.

Germplasm: Plants intended for use in breeding or conservation programmes.

Grain: A commodity class for seeds intended for processing or consumption and not for planting (see seeds).

Growing medium: Any material in which plant roots are growing or intended for that.

Purpose growing period (of a plant species): Time period of active growth during a growing season.

Growing season: Period or periods of the year when plants actively grow in an area, place of production or production site.

Habitat: Part of an ecosystem with conditions in which an organism naturally occurs or can establish.

Harmonization: The establishment, recognition and application by different countries of phytosanitary measures based on common standards.

Harmonized phytosanitary measures: Phytosanitary Measure established by contracting parties to the IPPC, based on international standards.

Heat treatment: The process in which a commodity is heated until it reaches a minimum temperature for a minimum period of time according to an official technical specification.

Host pest list: A list of pests that infest a plant species, globally or in an area.

Host range: Species capable, under natural conditions, of sustaining a specific pest or other organism.

Import permit: Official document authorizing importation of a commodity in accordance with specified phytosanitary import requirements.

Inactivation: Rendering micro-organisms incapable of development.

Incidence (of a pest): Proportion or number of units in which a pest is present in a sample, consignment, field or other defined population.

Incursion: An isolated population of a pest recently detected in an area, not known to be established, but expected to survive for the immediate future.

Infestation (of a commodity): Presence in a commodity of a living pest of the plant or plant product concerned. Infestation includes infection.

Inspection: Official visual examination of plants, plant products or other regulated articles to determine if pests are present or to determine compliance with phytosanitary regulations.

Inspector: Person authorized by a national plant protection organization the discharge its functions.

Integrity (of a consignment): Composition of a consignment as described by its phytosanitary certificate or other officially acceptable document, maintained without loss, addition or substitution.

Intended use: Declared purpose for which plants, plant products or other articles are imported, produced or used.

Interception (of a consignment): The refusal or controlled entry of an imported consignment due to failure to comply with phytosanitary regulations.

Interception (of a pest): The detection of a Pest during inspection or testing of an imported consignment.

Intermediate quarantine: Quarantine in a country other than the country of origin or destination.

International Plant Protection Convention: International Plant Protection Convention, as deposited with FAO in Rome in 1951 and as subsequently amended.

International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures: An international standard adopted by the Conference of FAO, the Interim Commission on Phytosanitary Measures or the Commission on Phytosanitary Measures, established under the IPPC.

International standards: International standards established in accordance with Article X paragraphs 1 and 2 of the IPPC.

Introduction (of a pest): The entry of a pest resulting in its establishment.

Inundative release: The release of large numbers of mass-produced biological control agents or beneficial organisms with the expectation of achieving a rapid effect.

IPPC: International Plant Protection Convention, as deposited in 1951 with FAO in Rome and as subsequently amended.

Irradiation: Treatment with any type of ionizing radiation.

ISPM: International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures.

Kiln-drying: A process in which wood is dried in a closed chamber using heat and/or humidity control to achieve a required moisture content.

Living Modified Organism: Any living organism that possesses a novel combination of genetic material obtained through the use of modern biotechnology.

LMO: Living Modified Organism.

Lot: A number of units of a single commodity, identifiable by its homogeneity of composition, origin etc., forming part of a consignment.

Mark: An official stamp or brand, internationally recognized, applied to a regulated article to attest its phytosanitary status: minimum absorbed dose (Dmin) The localized minimum absorbed dose within the process load.

Modern biotechnology: The application of:

(a) in vitro nucleic acid techniques, including recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and direct injection of nucleic acid into cells or organelles; or

(b) fusion of cells beyond the taxonomic family, that overcome natural physiological reproductive or recombination barriers and that are not techniques used in traditional breeding and selection.  (Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity).

Monitoring: An official ongoing process to verify phytosanitary situations.

Monitoring survey: Ongoing survey to verify the characteristics of a pest population national plant protection organization official service established by a government to discharge the functions specified by the IPPC.

Natural enemy: An organism which lives at the expense of another organism in its area of origin and which may help to limit the population of that organism. This includes parasitoids, parasites, predators, phytophagous organisms and pathogens.

Naturally occurring: A component of an ecosystem or a selection from a wild, population not altered by artificial means.

Non-quarantine pest: Pest that is not a quarantine pest for an area.

NPPO: National Plant Protection Organization.

Occurrence: The presence in an area of a pest officially recognized to be indigenous or introduced and not officially reported to have been eradicated (formerly occur).

Official: established, authorized or performed by national plant protection organization.

Official control: The active enforcement of mandatory phytosanitary regulations and the application of mandatory phytosanitary procedures with the objective of eradication or containment of quarantine pests or for the management of regulated non-quarantine pests.

Organism: Any biotic entity capable of reproduction or replication in its naturally occurring state.

Outbreak: A recently detected pest population, including an incursion, or a sudden significant increase of an established pest population in an area.

Packaging: Material used in supporting, protecting or carrying a commodity.

Parasite: An organism which lives on or in a larger organism, feeding upon it.

Parasitoid: An insect parasitic only in its immature stages, killing its host in the process of its development, and free living as an adult  pathogen micro-organism causing disease.

Pathway: Any means that allows the entry or spread of a pest.

Pest: Any species, strain or biotype of plant, animal or pathogenic agent injurious to plants or plant products. Note: In the IPPC, plant pest is sometimes used for the term pest.

Pest categorization: The process for determining whether a pest has or has not the characteristics of a quarantine pest or those of a regulated non-quarantine pest.

Pest diagnosis: The process of detection and identification of a pest.

Pest free area: An Area in which a specific pest does not occur as demonstrated by scientific evidence and in which, where appropriate, this condition is being officially maintained.

Pest free place of production: Place of production in which a specific pest does not occur as demonstrated by scientific evidence and in which, where appropriate, this condition is being officially maintained for a defined period.

Pest free production site: A defined portion of a place of production in which a specific pest does not occur as demonstrated by scientific evidence and in which, where appropriate, this condition is being officially maintained for a defined period and that is managed as a separate unit in the same way as a pest free place of production.

Pest record: A document providing information concerning the presence or absence of a specific pest at a particular location at a certain time, within an area (usually a country) under described circumstances.

Pest risk (for quarantine pests): The probability of introduction and spread of a pest and the magnitude of the associated potential economic consequences.

Pest risk (for regulated non-quarantine pests): The probability that a pest in plants for planting affects the Intended use of those plants with an economically unacceptable impact.

Pest Risk Analysis PRA (agreed interpretation): The process of evaluating biological or other scientific and economic evidence to determine whether an organism is a pest, whether it should be regulated, and the strength of any phytosanitary measures to be taken against it.

Pest Risk Assessment PRA (for quarantine pests): Evaluation of the probability of the introduction and spread of a pest and the magnitude of the associated potential economic consequences.

Pest Risk Assessment PRA (for regulated non-quarantine pests): Evaluation of the probability that a pest in plants for planting affects the intended use of those plants with an economically unacceptable impact.

Pest risk management (for quarantine pests): Evaluation and selection of options to reduce the risk of Introduction and spread of a pest.

Pest risk management (for regulated non-quarantine pests): Evaluation and selection of options to reduce the risk that a pest in plants for planting causes an economically unacceptable impact on the intended us of those plants.

Pest status (in an area): Presence or absence, at the present time, of a pest in an area, including where appropriate its distribution, as officially determined using expert judgement on the basis of current and historical pest records and other information.

Pest Free area PFA: Phytosanitary action an official operation, such as inspection, testing, surveillance or treatment, undertaken to implement phytosanitary measures.

Phytosanitary certificate: An official paper document or its official electronic equivalent, consistent with the model certificates of the IPPC, attesting that a consignment meets phytosanitary import requirements.

Phytosanitary certification: Use of phytosanitary procedures leading to the issue of a phytosanitary certificate phytosanitary import requirements: Specific phytosanitary measures established by an importing country concerning consignments moving into that country.

Phytosanitary legislation: Basic laws granting legal authority to a national plant protection organization from which phytosanitary regulations may be drafted.

Phytosanitary measure (agreed interpretation): Any legislation, regulation or official procedure having the purpose to prevent the introduction or spread of quarantine pests, or to limit the economic impact of regulated non-quarantine pests.

The agreed interpretation of the term phytosanitary measure accounts for the relationship of phytosanitary measures to regulated non-quarantine pests. This relationship is not adequately reflected in the definition found in Article II of the IPPC (1997).

Phytosanitary procedure: Any official method for implementing phytosanitary measures including the performance of inspections, tests, surveillance or treatments in connection with regulated pests.

Phytosanitary regulation: Official rule to prevent the introduction or spread of quarantine pests, or to limit the economic impact of regulated non-quarantine pests, including establishment of procedures for phytosanitary certification.

Phytosanitary security (of a consignment): Maintenance of the integrity of a consignment and prevention of its infestation and contamination by regulated pests, through the phytosanitary measures.

Place of production: Any premises or collection of fields operated as a single production or farming unit. This may include production sites which are separately managed for phytosanitary purposes.

Plant products: Unmanufactured material of plant origin (including grain) and those manufactured products that, by their nature or that of their processing, may create a risk for the introduction and spread of pests [formerly plant product].

Plant Protection Organization (national): See national plant protection organization.

Plant quarantine: All activities designed to prevent the Introduction or spread of quarantine pests or to ensure their official control.

Planting (including replanting): Any operation for the placing of plants in a growing medium, or by grafting or similar operations, to ensure their subsequent growth, reproduction or propagation plants living plants and parts thereof, including seeds and germplasm.

Plants for planting: Plants intended to remain planted, to be planted or replanted.

Plants in vitro: A commodity class for plants growing in an aseptic medium in a closed container (formerly plants in tissue culture).

Point of entry: Airport, seaport or land border point officially designated for the importation of consignments, and/or entrance of passengers.

Post-entry quarantine: Quarantine applied to a consignment after entry.

PRA: Pest Risk Analysis.

PRA area: Area in relation to which a Pest Risk Analysis is conducted.

Practically free: Of a consignment, field, or place of production, without pests (or a specific pest) in numbers or quantities in excess of those that can be expected to result from, and be consistent with good cultural and handling practices employed in the production and marketing of the commodity.

Pre-clearance: Phytosanitary certification and/or clearance in the country of origin, performed by or under the regular supervision of the national plant protection organization of the country of destination.

Predator: A natural enemy that preys and feeds on other animal organisms, more than one of which are killed during its lifetime  process load a volume of material with a specified loading configuration and treated as a single entity.

Processed wood material: Products that are a composite of wood constructed using glue, heat and pressure, or any combination thereof.

Prohibition: A phytosanitary regulation forbidding the importation or movement of specified pests or commodities.

Protected area: A regulated area that an NPPO has determined to be the minimum are a necessary for the effective protection of an endangered area.

Provisional measure: A phytosanitary regulation or procedure established without full technical justification owing to current lack of adequate information. A provisional measure is subjected to periodic review and full technical justification as soon as possible

Quarantine: Official confinement of regulated articles for observation and research or for further inspection, testing or treatment quarantine area an area within which a quarantine pest is present and is being officially controlled.

Quarantine pest: A pest of potential economic importance to the area endangered thereby and not yet present there, or present but not widely distributed and being officially controlled.

Quarantine station: Official station for holding plants or plant products in quarantine [formerly quarantine station or facility].

Raw wood: Wood which has not undergone processing or treatment.

Re-exported consignment: Consignment that has been imported into a country from which it is then exported. The consignment may be stored, split up, combined with other consignments or have its packaging changed [formerly country of re-export].

Reference specimen: Specimen, from a population of a specific organism, conserved and accessible for the purpose of identification, verification or comparison.

Refusal: Forbidding entry of a consignment or other regulated article when it fails to comply with phytosanitary regulations.

Regional plant protection organization (RPPO): An intergovernmental organization with the functions laid down by Article IX of the IPPC.

Regional standards: Standards established by a regional plant protection organization for the guidance of the members of that organization.

Regulated area: An area into which, within which or from which plant, plant products and other regulated articles are subjected to phytosanitary measures.

Regulated article: Any plant, plant product, storage place, packaging, conveyance, container, soil and any other organism, object or material capable of harbouring or spreading pests, deemed to require phytosanitary measures, particularly where international transportation is involved.

Regulated non-quarantine pest: A non-quarantine pest whose presence in plants for planting affects the intended use of those plants with an economically unacceptable impact and which is therefore regulated within the territory of the importing contracting party.

Regulated pest: A quarantine pest or a regulated non-quarantine pest.

Release (into the environment): Intentional liberation of an organism into the environment.

Release (of a consignment): Authorization for entry after clearance.

Replanting: See Planting.

Required response: A specified level of effect for a treatment.

Restriction: A phytosanitary regulation allowing the importation or movement of specified commodities subject to specific requirements.

RNQP: Regulated non-quarantine pest.

Round wood: Wood not sawn longitudinally, carrying its natural rounded surface, with or without bark.

RPPO: Regional Plant protection organization.

Sawn wood: Wood sawn longitudinally, with or without its natural rounded surface with or without bark.

Secretary: Secretary of the Commission appointed pursuant to Article XII.

Seeds: A commodity class for seeds for planting or intended for planting and not for consumption or processing (see grain).

SIT: Sterile Insect Technique.

Spread (of a Pest): Expansion of the geographical distribution of pest within an area.

Standard: Document established by consensus and approved by a recognized body that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context.

 Sterile insect: An insect that, as result of a specific treatment, is unable to reproduce.

Sterile insect technique: Method of pest control using area wide inundative release of sterile insects to reduce reproduction in a field population of the same species.

Stored product: Unmanufactured plant product intended for consumption or processing, stored in a dried form (this includes in particular grain and dried fruits and vegetables).

Suppression: The application of phytosanitary measures in an infested area to reduce pest populations.

Surveillance: An Official process which collects and records data on pest occurrence or absence by survey, monitoring or other procedures.

Survey: An Official procedure conducted over a defined period of time to determine the characteristics of a pest population or to determine which species occur in an area.

Systems approach(es): The integration of different risk management measures, at least two of which act independently, and which cumulatively achieve the appropriate level of protection against regulated pests.

 Technically justified: Justified o n the basis of conclusions reached by using an appropriate pest risk analysis or, where applicable, another comparable examination and evaluation of available scientific

Test: Official examination, other than visual, to determine if pest are present or to identify pests.

Tolerance level (of a pest): Incidence of a pest specified as a threshold for action to control that pest or to prevent its spread or introduction.

Transience: Presence of a pest that is not expected to lead to establishment.

Transit: See consignment in transit.

Transparency: The principle of making available, at the international level, phytosanitary measures and their rationale.

Treatment: Official procedure for the killing, inactivation or removal of pests, or for rendering pests infertile or for devitalization.

Treatment schedule: The critical parameters of a treatment which need to be met to achieve the intended outcome (i.e. the killing, inactivation or removal of pests, or rendering pests infertile, or devitalization) at a stated efficacy

Visual examination: The physical examination of plants, plant products, or other regulated articles using the unaided eye, lens, stereoscope or microscope to detect pests or contaminants without testing or processing

Wood: A commodity class for round wood, sawn wood, wood chips or dunnage, with or without Bark.

Wood packaging material: Wood or wood products (excluding paper products) used in supporting, protecting or carrying a commodity (includes dunnage).