The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) are considering enforcing a standard for wood packaging to prevent the introduction and spread of invasive species between the two countries. 

Wood packaging imported into Canada is regulated under an international standard, ISPM No. 15, to prevent invasive species from being introduced into our country. This standard requires wood packaging to be heat-treated or fumigated and then marked to indicate that it has been treated. Wood packaging may also be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate that specifies the treatment used. Up until now, moving wood packaging between Canada and the continental United States has been exempted from this international standard.

With a growing number of invasive species being introduced into the two countries, CFIA and APHIS have jointly agreed to terminate the exemption and begin enforcing ISPM No. 15 for wood packaging material between the U.S. and Canada.

Canada and the U.S. are moving forward with the proposed removal of the exemption and to allow sufficient time for adjustment, the CFIA and APHIS are developing a gradual multi-year phase-in period that would see the complete implementation of the ISPM no.15 regulation by 2011.

For more information visit the CFIA website.