4. Legacy
and
way forward

The first International Plant Health Conference (IPHC) was scheduled to take place in Helsinki, Finland, from 28 June to 1 July 2021, but was cancelled due to ongoing travel restrictions and public health risk posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In agreement with host country Finland, the IYPH International Steering Committee made the decision to reschedule the IPHC, and recommended that the first International Plant Health Conference take place in the week of 12 May 2022, to coincide with the first International Day of Plant Health.

To pave the way to the conference, the IYPH International Steering Committee decided to organize a series of thematic webinars, kick-started by the launch of the Scientific review on the impact of climate change on plant pests on 1 June 2021. The event was followed by other two webinars on 29 and 30 June 2021, which focused on the importance of plant health for food systems, and the interconnections between plant health, biodiversity and climate change.

Webinar participants highlighted the importance of including plant health considerations and the IPPC international standards in food security dialogues within FAO and the United Nations Food Systems Summit. They also stressed the importance of plant health in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and its relevance to the One Health approach.

With climate change now creating the conditions for plant pests and diseases to thrive in places where they were not previously present, participants highlighted the importance of evaluating the impact of climate change on plant health on a regular basis, especially in relation to pest risk analysis and global surveillance issues. They also reiterated that phytosanitary issues should be adequately reflected in the international climate change debate under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. With regard to biodiversity, it was stressed in particular that international cooperation between biodiversity-related conventions should be increased.

Both webinars gathered hundreds of participants and were registered as independent dialogues for the United Nations Food Systems Summit, with the webinar results helping to inform the Summit. Two more webinars are planned for October and December 2021, the first focusing on plant health and remote sensing, and the latter focusing on plant health and the SDGs.

The global community will and must understand that our health and well-being does not depend on the occurrence and spread of a single harmful organism, such as the coronavirus, but on environmental health and biodiversity in general.

Jari Leppä,,
Minister of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland at the
Fifteenth Session of the Commission on
Phytosanitary Measures