How plant passport authorisation inspection is being conducted

IN December 2019, Forestry Journal began an investigation into the proposed introduction of plant passports by the UK government for certain timber and wood movements, publishing the findings (‘Passport to puzzlement’) in the March 2020 issue. The investigation came about following contact from concerned readers, including a dual forestry/arb contractor who had learned, via the Royal Forestry Society (RFS), of new plant passporting requirements drawn up jointly by the Forestry Commission (FC) and Confor and which came into force on 14 December 2019.

A ‘dog’s breakfast’ timber load which would require a plant passport for movement off site if any conifer, Castanea (chestnut) or Planatus (plane) is contained therein.

Our reader’s immediate concern was not for himself but for small and often one-man operators, paid-up members of neither Confor nor the RFS, who therefore may not have access to the information then disseminated about the requirements and instructions from the FC about how to comply and remain within the law. Confor had said that anyone involved in the movement of Plant Health Forestry Regulated Material (PHFRM) had to become a Registered Authorised Professional Operator (RAPO). At that time PHFRM was qualified as:

• all conifers,
• Castanea (including sweet chestnut) with bark,
• Platanus (including London plane) with or without bark.

On 23 March, 2020, just three weeks after publication of the article in Forestry Journal, the whole of the UK was plunged into lockdown in an effort to subdue to the COVID-19 pandemic, or to quote the Prime Minister, “squash the sombrero” and flatten the infection curve. Full lockdown lasted for exactly three months, with easing of restrictions only starting on 23 June.

London-based arborists can hardly escape becoming ‘registered authorised professional operators’ because more than half the capital’s trees are London plane. Royal Parks like Green Park seen here in early spring are no exception. And with Massaria disease increasingly prevalent London plane trees require close scrutiny and extra care.

Given the all-pervading nature of the pandemic, I thought these plans governing plant passporting requirements for timber and wood movements in the UK would end up being ‘squashed’ along with the ‘sombrero’ and remain nestled in the long grass for eternity. However, in early November, Forestry Journal learned that RAPOs were receiving letters from the Plant Health (Forestry) and Forest Services at the Forestry Commission in Edinburgh. The letters informed professional operators registered to issue plant passports of a requirement for on-site inspection (within a specified time), and how to prepare for the inspection which would be carried out by an FC contract inspector. In summary, the letter said:

• RAPOs (registered professional operators authorised by the FC to issue plant passports) are required to be inspected within 12 months of authorisation by the FC.
• You will be expected to answer questions, provide evidence of any plant passport issued and provide examples of your plant passport management system.
• A fee will be charged for each inspection and any requirement for multiple inspections will result in increased costs to the operator. In addition, this may also cause a delay to the inspection process and thus cause inspections to take place more than 12 months after authorisation. This in turn will affect compliance with the Plant Health Regulation (EU 2016/2031).
• Details on the fees are set out in Schedule 1 which outlines fees for inspections in connection with a plant passport authority and which are in ‘The Plant Health (Fees) (Forestry) (England and Scotland) 2015’ (www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/350).
• Currently the fees are £37 up to and including the first hour and £9.25 thereafter for each additional 15 minutes or part thereof. The professional operator will be charged for time spent on administration, travelling and the inspection. (If you have any queries please contact: plant.health@forestrycommission.gov.uk).

READ MORE: Passport to puzzlement

We subsequently learned that one of our contacts had already received an inspection of his premises and plant passport management system. His insights and the implications of that inspection make for fascinating reading. These are all the more revealing due to his knowledge of livestock farming, animal health and transport, which enabled interesting comparisons to be drawn.

Pine timber being harvested in Norfolk some years ago would today require a plant passport for transport to the sawmill in Norwich.

On the practicalities of timber/wood transport and the consequences of getting things wrong he says:

• If, in the interests of simplicity, the registered operator issues plant passports on all loads but some loads are of non-specified species (e.g. hornbeam coppice poles) then you are committing an offence. This is because plant passports must only be issued for specified species and material (e.g. Castanea with bark).
• The operator is also committing an offence if he or she enters Phytophthora ramorum on the plant passport, although the disease has now been found on a range of evergreen conifers, as well as deciduous larch conifer species. All movements of infected larch must be recorded but are required to be entered on a totally different recording system.

Other situations and scenarios arising but which require some clarification include:

• If transport is arranged by the timber buyer then they have to issue the plant passport. Similarly, if the timber seller arranges transport, they are responsible for issuing the plant passport; in this instance the buyer, who may be doing the delivery themself or via a timber haulage contractor, appears to have no responsibility for keeping any records of that timber transportation.
• A plant passport must accompany a load, although this is not currently a requirement for DEFRA’s animal health passporting system. Thus the registered signee must make sure that the driver of the tractor and trailer fetching the timber load has a copy of their licence, and likewise for every pickup load of the day.
• There is no need for a plant passport for timber taken within a 10-mile radius of the registered operator’s address. If correct, this makes a mockery of the entire scheme, because diseases have no respect for distance cut-off points. Indeed, you could have two operators working on a woodland site containing a lot of sweet chestnut obliged to do different things. One has a registered address which is 11 miles away and is therefore required to issue a plant passport to transport sweet chestnut sawlogs and coppice poles back to his yard. The other is not required to issue a plant passport to accompany loads because the registered address is 9 miles distant.

Chestnut coppice provides continuous opportunities over long periods of time for foresters in Kent and Sussex, and to a lesser extent in Surrey and Hampshire, Essex and Suffolk. A plant passport is now a legal requirement for the movement of sweet chestnut with bark.

Our contact told Forestry Journal how the fees for this inspection will amount to several hundred pounds “simply for the privilege of bringing timber back to my own yard”. He is no stranger to this type of inspection, having undergone one around 10 years ago for authorisation to move infected larch. However, the payment he made to become registered and authorised to handle infected larch was refunded some 1–2 years later, after this initial charge was deemed illegal.

Requirement for plant passports for particular species and the costs involved may cause arborists to become more selective about the work they do. Ironically a plant passport is not required to transport common ash (being worked on here). Fraxinus excelsior is already finished thanks to delayed action by the plant health authorities following notification in 2007 by EPPO (The European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization) about Chalara then spreading in mainland Europe.

He doesn’t understand why these charges have been introduced when DEFRA doesn’t charge for animal movements.

“The system governing animal movement is far more rigorous and allows tracing of an animal from its farm of birth, yet with no inspection costs,” he said. “And if a disease is identified in the livestock you receive compensation.

“It seems to me that the UK plant health authorities regard plant passports as the frontline defence in disease discovery, with operators being forced to check each load. And for the favour afforded to the plant health authorities, these operators are being charged for an annual audit. Plant Health is now in the uniquely favourable position of getting each operator to check the timber for disease but also to pay for the privilege of doing so.”

Norway spruce harvested on a Suffolk estate and destined for a well-known sawmill in Southampton. Transportation of such timber now requires a plant passport.

He also asks a very pertinent question. Most of the auditors are not Plant Health staff. They are employees of private companies contracted to the FC. “So where were these tenders advertised?  Not in the pages of Forestry Journal”, he says.

But the saga does not end there, because each and every RAPO is required to sign an ‘Annual Declaration of Undertaking’, which reads as follows:

This declaration must be completed on an annual basis by all professional operators registered and authorised by the Forestry Commission to issue plant passports. This must be done at the time of the annual inspection and in the presence of a designated Plant Health Inspector of the Forestry Commission.

By signing below you are:

i) agreeing to comply with your obligations under Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 of the European Parliament and of the Council and Regulation (EU) 2017/625 of the European Parliament and of the Council. You also agree to comply with any obligations under The Official Controls (Plant Health and Genetically Modified Organisms) Regulations 2019 Statutory Instruments 2019 number 1517, 2020 number 381 2020 number 1089;

ii) confirming that the information provided is accurate. Unique registration identity numbers must be used by the named Professional Operator only and not passed onto any third party. Failure to comply with any of the obligations mentioned above may also render you liable to prosecution and, if convicted, to a fine of any amount. On registration, you agree to: – Update the Forestry Commission Plant Health Forestry on any changes to your name, postal address, country of registration or contact details, no later than 30 days after the change occurs. – Where relevant, submit annually to Forestry Commission Plant Health Forestry, an update concerning any changes to the address of the premises or the location of land plots used, the statements on Professional Operator Activity or the commodity type. Such information must be submitted in writing by email or by post to the FC Plant Health Admin Team (plant.health@forestrycommission.gov.uk) by 30th April of each year with regard to the updating of the information of the preceding year.

I confirm that the information given during the inspection is accurate and agree to the above FC Declaration of Undertaking relating to the responsibilities of professional operators with the FC …………… (sign on the dotted line).

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Requirement on forestry contractors, arborists and woodsmen to become authorised professional operators and issue plant passporting documentation is not going to go away. And given the nature of the current stipulations on PHRFM – all conifers, Castanea with bark and Planatus with or without bark – it is doubtful that many operators, whether in forestry or arb, will get away with not becoming a RAPO.

Conifers are the bedrock of plantation forestry and provide bread-and-butter work for arborists. Forestry contractors working south of the River Thames in Kent, Sussex and Surrey, and those working in Essex north of the Thames, are unlikely to go through a year without working on sweet chestnut. Likewise, most arb contractors based in London and the Home Counties can realistically expect to be involved with London plane, which accounts for over half of the capital’s tree population.

Whether this system of plant passporting for timber/wood movements can or will achieve the government’s aims is another matter. It seems strange that Plant Health – which by its qualification, expertise and experience is charged with keeping alien diseases out of the country and preventing their establishment and spread should they get in – is expecting foresters and arborists to immediately identify any one of the many economic tree pests and pathogens now pervading the British Isles.

However, the biggest threat to its success probably comes from what is politely called the ‘unofficial arb sector’, well out of reach of any official and legalistic systems relating to tree health and movement of arborists’ arisings. This is a widening world of white vans, mobile phones and ladders with a dearth of registered addresses. And we all know where much of the debris from this kind of work ends up.

Expected changes to plant passports, taking effect on 1 January 2021, were announced on 8 December 2020, in Plant Health News issue 40.

The section relating to plant passports for movement within GB and between the EU and GB and vice versa is set out as follows:

1.2 Section 2: Changes to operational process and procedures from 1 January 2021

Plant passports

• Phytosanitary certificates (PCs) will replace plant passports for movements of regulated material between the EU and GB and vice versa.
• EU plant passports will no longer be used to accompany regulated plants and plant products, including wood, wood products and isolated bark, from the EU to GB or within GB.
• The format for the GB internal movement passport will change from the EU passport to a UK passport.
• GB will not use plant passports with a Protected Zone designation.
• UK plant passport requirements will apply to all movements within GB. This will apply for conifers, Castanea (including sweet chestnut), Platanus (plane), Juglans (walnut) and Pterocarya (wingnut).  
• The same procedures for registration and authorisation of professional operators will apply. There will be no need for re-registration.
• UK passports cannot be issued by the EU and EU passports cannot be issued or attached in GB (passports issued in the UK may be attached in the EU until July 2021).
• Export PCs will be required for regulated wood, wood products and isolated bark moved to Northern Ireland not plant passports.
• Phytosanitary control arrangements related to the movement of material from Northern Ireland to GB and from GB to Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey are being considered and will be confirmed as soon as possible.
   

What you need to do:

• If you are authorised to issue plant passports you will need to amend the format of these to comply with the UK guidance.
• Continue to issue plant passports for regulated material moving within GB.

Full information is available here.

For info, e-mail: plant.health@forestrycommission.gov.uk.

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