Agenda includes proposal for total ban on 'dirty dozen'

Indigenous NGO's Attend UNEP Negotiations on Toxic Pollutants

Nairobi, Kenya - Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) and the Canadian-based Northern Aboriginal Peoples Coordinating Committee have been in Nairobi, Kenya participating in the second round of international negotiations on a global treaty to reduce and eliminate environmental emissions and discharges of persistent organic pollutants or POPs. These negotiations started January 25, 1999 and will continue till January 29th. IEN is part of the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) which is a network of public interest non-governmental (NGOs) united in support of the global elimination of persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

Ninety-seven countries have gathered at United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya for the second round of negotiations of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-2) for an international legally binding mechanism for implementing international action on POPs. The second round of INC-2 continues till January 29. The negotiations came as a response to worldwide concern over the dangers to public health and the environment posed by POPs. An initial list of these POPs are grouped into three categories: 1) pesticides: aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex and toxaphene; 2) industrial chemicals: hexachlorobenzene and polychlorinated biphenyl's (PCBs); and 3) unintended by-products: dioxins and furans. The UNEP Governing Council mandate calls on countries to reach an international convention on POPs by the year 2000.

UNEP Deputy Executive Director, Shafqat Kakakhel expressed, "These persistent, toxic pollutants travel long distances, far from their sources to remote parts of the world," Kakakhel said. "They harm the ecological support system on which life depends. They accumulate and magnify as they move through the food chain, concentrating even in the largest animal species like polar bears and whales. No country is safe from their effects. No person is protected against their presence. POPs endanger public health and the environment around the globe, causing illness and taking lives. They pose risks to the unborn and endanger generations to come." Because of such factors, "no country, acting alone, can stem the tide," he said.

The negotiations will also focus on scientific criteria and a procedure for identifying additional pollutants for possible inclusion under the treaty.

IEN is following a mandate from concerns voiced by Indigenous Peoples from North America about the dangerous affects of POPs to base and subsistence cultures. Tom Goldtooth, National Coordinator of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) submitted oral intervention at INC-2 of the concerns of Indigenous Peoples. [Statement attached below]

Complete coverage of POPs INC-2 including photos and RealAudio available at:
http://www.iisd.ca/chemical/pops2
Information on United Nations Environmental Programme:
http://www.unep.org
Information on the International POPs Elimination Network at:
http://www.psr.org/ipen.htm

Environment: UN negotiates global treaty on dangerous chemicals



By Judith Achieng

NAIROBI, Jan. 26, 1999 -- More than 400 delegates from at least 100 countries are meeting in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi to debate a ban on the world's most dangerous chemicals to reduce environmental contamination. The five-day conference which began yesterday at the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) headquarters in Nairobi marks the second round of talks on a group of chemicals known as Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), most of which were developed early in the century to control diseases, increase food production and improve the standard of living but which were over time, found to be a threat to biodiversity and human health. "They harm the ecological support system of which life depends.

They accumulate, they move from food chain to food chain, concentrating even in the largest animal species like polar bear and whales," said UNEP deputy director Shafqat Kakakhel. Addressing the conference yesterday, Kakakhel called for a global ban on POPs and said no country or individual is safe from POPs contamination. The Nairobi meeting, which followed a series of talks, which began in the Canadian city of Montreal mid last year, is expected to end in a legally binding blueprint by 2000.

"At this point, work on this treaty is on target and on time, a treaty by the year 2000 is challenging, but reachable as long as there are resources to get the job done," said Kakakhel.

Scientists say POPs, which affect human beings through contamination of water and food supply and to a lesser extent through inhalation and contact with skin, are major causes of cancers an disfunctional endocrine systems, interfering with the body's hormones. The chemicals which are not soluble in water, are readily absorbed in the body fat tissue, where they remain accumulated unbroken, explains Peter Oris, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Illinois, School of Public Health in the United States.

"The concentrations are bound to be hundreds of thousands of times higher in the human body than they are anywhere in the environment," he told journalists in the Kenyan capital yesterday.

In women, Oris said, the contamination accumulates in the breast cells and uterus then passed on to infants leading to abnormal births. Groups negotiating the agreement target 12 chemicals for urgent total banning, although they urge restrictions on a number of organic chemicals, according to Romeo Quijano of the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN), which groups some 130 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) around the world.

The 12 chemicals, on the banning list, include eight pesticides, two industrial chemicals and two families of unintended by-products of manufacture and use of chlorine and chlorine containing materials such as dioxins and furans. Most of these chemicals are restricted in most countries but their use are still widespread, according to a delegate at the talks. On top of the list of 12 targeted chemicals is DDT-a colorless toxic insecticide-banned in many countries but whose use is still widespread. Quijano said the abandoned and obsolete stockpiles continue to pose hazards to the environment and human health.

Environmental groups, like the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Greenpeace, say they are concerned about a mix of pesticides buried in the mid-1980s on a Yemen state farm project, financed jointly by the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and the World Bank. The dump, which contains an estimated 33 tonnes of unwanted pesticides, is dispersing through the ground and irrigation water spreading contamination and posing threat to local water supplies, according to WWF.

An estimated 110,000 tonnes of obsolete or unwanted pesticides are believed to remain in stockpiles in developing countries and enormous stockpiles in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, in the form of highly toxic POPs such as DDT, chloride and dieldrin, most of it escaping to the environment. WWF says the stockpile problem will worsen until the stocks, stores and environmental hot spots are identified and destroyed in a manner "that does not create new POPs pollution or other environmental hazards." The proposed agreement, which is being pushed mainly by environmental groups like Greenpeace and WWF, draws strength from at least five previous agreements which add onto the pressure for a worldwide ban on persistent organic pollutants.

The most recent of the agreements is the 1998 legally binding Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, which provides importing countries with a more informed basis for deciding which chemicals to accept or reject. It makes trade in chemicals subject to labelling requirements and information on potential health and environmental hazards.

Other significant agreements include the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe's Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) also ratified in 1998, the 1993 Global London Convention on ocean dumping and the Basel Convention on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes later amended to include the banning of exporting such wastes.

Indigenous groups from Europe and Americas are also pushing for more say in the proposed agreement against POPs which they say have affected their populations over time. Tom Goldtooth of the Dine Indian ethnic group in northern America, who works for the U.S.-based Indigenous Environmental Network, told IPS yesterday that although there are only about 2.5 million people left of the 400 indigenous tribes in northern America, the populations continue to bear the consequences of contamination of POPs as a result of industrial activities, compounded by unfair environmental laws.

"There are serious environmental injustices meted out on indigenous people of America. Although there are federal laws to protect the general population against environmental hazards, the laws are discriminating against colored people whose communities are usually dumped with toxic wastes," he claimed.

He cited a recent study on indigenous tribes around the Great Lakes region between the United States and Canada which found between 6,000 and 7,000 parts per million levels of contamination of POPs in the breast milk of women as opposed to 50 parts per million minimum acceptable standard of contamination. The study also found high concentrations of DDT in blood samples.

Greenpeace's Jackie Warledo, who belongs to the remnants of the Seminole, a small Indian tribe in northern America, said indigenous people are also at higher risk of contamination because of the direct link of their cultures and religion to their environment. "We indigenous people are disproportionately burdened with POPs contamination because of our relationship with our land," she said.

Some delegates have, however, opposed the elimination of DDT, which is still in use in more than 20 countries, because of its major role in combating malaria and other insect-borne diseases.

Malaria poses threat to some 2.5 billion people in more than 90 countries and contributes to at least three million deaths every year, according to the World Health Organization. Indigenous Environmental Network P.O. Box 485 Bemidji, Minnesota 56619-0485 USA Phone (218) 751-4967 Fax (218) 751-0561 email: ien@igc.org Internet Web Site: http://www.ienearth.org

Statement of Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network at the 2nd Session at the Intergovernmental Negotiations Committee On Pops

January 25, 1999

On behalf of the Indigenous Environmental Network, we thank the government of Kenya, the Chair, and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Secretariat for hosting this INC2. The Indigenous Environmental Network is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) based in the aboriginal territories of North America, otherwise known as the United States. The Indigenous Environmental Network is a member of the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN).

The Indigenous Environmental Network has affiliation of over 200 Indigenous organizations, traditional societies and tribal sovereign governments from throughout United States and Canada, as well as, Indigenous associations in Mexico, Central and South America. Collectively, our affiliations comprise over < million Indigenous Peoples throughout the Americas. What I want to do now, is make general remarks on the INC2 conference.

During the past two years, our organization has directly consulted with approximately 1,500 Indigenous Peoples on the serious issue of the impact of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) upon our communities - our villages - our environment.

We are discovering that our Indigenous Peoples from the farming villages of the south - to the villages of the Arctic north are being disproportionately impacted from POPs contamination. Our Indigenous Peoples are at higher risk to POPs exposure due to our land-based and subsistence cultures.

Within the Great Lakes water basin that includes the political transboundaries of the United States and Canada, there have been marked increases in cancer, birth defects, diabetes, and immunological based disorders (e.g. allergies and asthma). Indigenous Peoples within the Great Lakes have reported residues of certain chemical contaminants in their tissue. Residues of these chemicals, such as PCBs, DDT, and dioxin are stockpiled in the blood, fat, and mothers breast milk of our Indigenous women - who are the first environment of our Peoples. POPs remain stockpiled in the sedimentation of riverbeds, on the land and bodies of our habitat, often without adequate remediation.

In Sonera, Mexico, high levels of multiple pesticides were found in the cord blood of newborns and in breast milk of the Indigenous Yaqui farmers.

Mr. Chair, I wish I could provide a more positive intervention, however, the state of affairs concerning POPs and its impact to Indigenous Peoples is not encouraging.

In addition to the recognition of human health impacts of POPs exposure within Indigenous populations, UNEP must evaluate the cumulative impact of POPs exposures that consider socio-economic, cultural, religious and other factors.

Persistent organic pollutants affects the traditional cultural and religious practices of Indigenous Peoples throughout the world. The continued production, release, and use of

POPs affect our right to maintain a sustainable and subsistence way of life. POPs chemicals affects our right to fish, to hunt, and to gather within environments that are clean. In many areas of North America we do not have access to chemical free plants that we use for healing our families. We have women basketweavers that are contaminated from persistent toxic substances. This situation reflects Indigenous Peoples issues throughout the world.

National and international policies that prevent Indigenous Peoples from practicing their cultural and religious rights become a religious intolerance that violates basic principles of human rights. Fundamental human rights demand the right for all people throughout the world to live in a safe and healthy environment free from disproportionate toxic burdens and discriminatory treatment. Yes, this is a life and death situation - but not only for Indigenous Peoples - but all people, all races, all nationalities and the biodiversity of the planet.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Toxic Chemical Treaty Talks begin in Kenya
Agenda includes proposal for total ban on 'dirty dozen'

Nairobi, Kenya (AP) Delegates from more than 100 countries gathered here to begin negotiating the first global treaty to ban 12 toxic chemical known as "the dirty dozen". They were to discuss whether a total ban on persistent organic pollutants, known as POPs, is feasible, and negotiate a process for implementing a treaty. Some provisions of the treaty were likely to include technical and financial assistance to countries, especially those in the southern hemisphere, to help them shift to environmentally safe alternatives.

The five-day meeting at the headquarters of the U.N. Environment Program opened with environmentalists and the chemical industry at odds over whether to ban the 12 toxic chemicals which include pesticides such as DDT (Dichlorodiphenyl Trichloroethance) and industrial chemicals such as dioxin and PCBs that have been linked to cancer, birth defects and other genetic and developmental abnormalities.

The conference is the second of five scheduled UN negotiating sessions on POPs. A diplomatic conference in Stockholm will follow, probably in spring 2001, to adopt the convention, John Buccini, chairman of treaty's negotiating committee, told reporters last week in New York.

"These chemical have a very long life and have the ability to travel thousand of miles and are linked to birth defects, development abnormalities and acute poisoning in human and wildlife", Clifton Curtis, director of World Wildlife Fund's Global Toxic Initiative, said in Nairobi. Curtis said DDT is of special concern to the WWF and said the organization is calling for a phase out by 2007 and for use only as a "pesticide of last resort" until than. Although banned in the developed world in 1972 because of the danger it poses to wildlife and human health, DDT is still used to control mosquitoes and other disease carrying insects in many of developing nations. Curtis said the WWF plans to release a report in Nairobi on Wednesday outlining enough scientific evidence of hazards to humans and wildlife to justify a global ban on DDT. He said the latest findings prove that malaria bearing mosquitoes have developed resistance to the chemical.

The organization issued a report last June claiming that alternatives such as chemically treated mosquito nets and environmentally friendly pest control are available and effective. But Curtis admitted a major goal of the POPs treaty under negotiation is to make sure that alternatives are studied for their safety and that funding is provided to help less affluent nations make the change from DDT and other POPs.

Dr. Mahmood A. Khwaja
Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI)
Islamabad. Pakistan
Khwaja@sdpi.org