President Leonel Fernandez has created an agency charged with fulfilling the World Trade Organization’s health requirements, as well as guaranteeing local agricultural heritage. The new agency created by Executive Decree number 515-2005 is called the Comite Nacional para la Aplicacion de las Medidas Sanitarias y Fitosanitarias, a national committee for the application of health and plant health measures. The committee is made up of the Minister of Agriculture, represented by the Department of Plant Health and the Department of Livestock. The committee chairperson will be the director of Plant Health and the executive director of the National Agriculture Council will be the committee’s secretary. Also forming part of the committee will be the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of the Environment, the ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Foreign Ministry. In addition, the Agro-Business Board (JAD) and observers from the Inter-American Institute for Agricultural Cooperation (IICA), the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) will be represented on the committee. The agency is primarily responsible for establishing the ways and means of dealing with issues arising from the international trade in livestock, plants, products and derivatives of agricultural origin. Also in the agency’ remit is the need to protect people from additives, toxins or other pollutants, as well as diseases transmitted by animal or vegetable vectors.