Reproduced below are the press releases IPEN (International POPs Elimination Network) and IEN have sent from INC3 (3rd Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee) in Geneva. Feel free to forward them to your local press with any additional message relating to your local situation, however, if you do change them in any way, it is very important to be sure that it is clear that any information not in the original press release is coming from your organization and not IPEN and IEN, in which case you may wish to put yourself as the contact person for the local aspects. As you see, the first release is in response to the controversy which has played out on the pops listserve regarding DDT, and the subsequent interventions made on this subject at the plenary Monday morning. DDT issues affect Indigenous Peoples in developing countries. The second press release is about the convening of the INC3 meeting in general and the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and Indigenous Peoples Organizations (IPOs), IEN and IPEN at the meeting.

Geneva, Switzerland (September 6, 1999) - As international negotiations resume on the world's most toxic chemicals, a coalition of 180 non-governmental organizations in attendance today called for the worldwide elimination of DDT, a hazardous chemical that continues to be used in some parts of the world.

"The barriers to fully implementing alternatives to DDT are financial and political, not scientific," said Romeo Quijano, MD, a physician and president of the Pesticide Action Network in the Philippines. "DDT is no longer used in the Philippines and malaria rates have not changed significantly."

The group of NGOs, known as the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN), is participating in United Nations-sponsored negotiations aimed at creating a treaty to reduce or eliminate the world's most toxic chemicals, known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The IPEN platform calls for elimination of DDT, but allows for interim use in specific situations, such as health emergencies. The platform also calls for increased funding for development and implementation of alternatives to DDT and other POPs.

"IPEN's priority is human health," said Dr. Quijano, who is also the Southern co-chair of the International POPs Elimination Network. "There are safe and effective alternatives to DDT. This treaty represents an historic opportunity to develop and implement them further and to attack both malaria and DDT at the same time."

DDT is classified as a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and has been linked to cancer and shortened duration of breast feeding, which poses nutritional and immunological threats to infants. In birds and other wildlife, DDT has been conclusively linked to reproductive and developmental problems. Many scientists are concerned about the potential for similar effects in humans.

"People should not have to choose between exposure to malaria and exposure to DDT," said Paul Saoke, program director of the Kenya Association of Physicians and Medical Workers for Social Responsibility. "When DDT was first introduced 50 years ago, it was the most effective short-term solution but we now know enough about the long-term consequences of DDT use to know we should phase it out."

Alternatives to DDT includes bed nets made with synthetic pyrethroids, mosquito management programs which include strategies such as releasing natural enemies of mosquitos and other insects, public education campaigns, vaccines and elimination of insect breeding sites, among others.

IPEN, visit http://www.ipen.org

Coalition of 180 NGOs from 40 Countries Call for Treaty to Establish Elimination of DDT, Dioxin and Other Chemicals as Goal

Geneva, Switzerland (September 6, 1999) - As United Nations-sponsored negotiations resumed today on a treaty to control the most wide-spread and toxic chemicals in the world, a coalition of 180 non-governmental organizations involved in the process called for the worldwide elimination of substances such as DDT, dioxin, PCBs and nine other chemicals known to cause significant health and environmental problems.

"The negotiations this week must preserve the goal of eliminating - not managing - these substances which are inherently unmanageable," said Romeo Quijano, MD, a physician and president of the Pesticide Action Network in the Philippines and the Southern co-chair of the International POPs Elimination Network. "We are concerned that governments will buckle under pressure from industry groups and others who say these substances are impossible to eliminate."

The International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) is a group of 180 NGOs from 40 countries focused on achieving a global treaty to phase out and eliminate persistent organic pollutants (POPs), the group of chemicals which include such toxic chemicals as DDT, dioxin and PCBs. POPs are highly toxic chemicals that break down extremely slowly in the environment. In humans and wildlife, they are linked to reproductive abnormalities, neurological defects and some cancers.

"These chemicals are the most dangerous and, because it can take decades for them to break down, they have spread to all corners of the earth. All living creatures have these substances in their bodies," said Deepika D'Souza, Executive Director India Center for Human Rights and Law. "The health affects of POPs are well known in humans and even better known in wildlife."

Alternatives to POPs are numerous and varied. For instance, PCBs are being substituted throughout the world with non-toxic oils. Dioxins and furans can be eliminated by preventing the production, use and disposal of products such as PVC plastics. Nine of the twelve chemicals targeted in the POPs treaty negotiations are pesticides that can be eliminated and replaced with safe and effective chemical or management alternatives.

"There is absolutely no conflict between eliminating these chemicals and public health or the public good, said Robert K. Musil, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. "In country after country, it has been proven that there are viable alternatives to POPs. This treaty is the opportunity to establish those alternatives and phase out POPs."

Native activists spoke on the importance of the POPs negotiations and linked environmental rights to their human rights struggles. Tom Goldtooth (Indigenous Environmental Netowrk), Faith Gemmill (Gwich'in Tribe) and Rebecca Sockbeson (Penobscot Nation, Indigenous Network Against Tribal Extinction)

[The following statement is being submitted today as an oral and written intervention by Ms. Rebecca Sockbeson, a tribal member of the Penobscot Nation, Maine, and on behalf of IRATE, a Penobscot tribal citizen group.]

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. I speak to you today as an indigenous citizen of the Penobscot Nation, USA. I wish to respectfully offer a statement on behalf of Indigenous Resistance Against Tribal Extinction (IRATE) with support of the Indigenous Environmental Network, on behalf of the indigenous children of my nation and those who have yet to be created and finally on behalf of our worldwide Mother, the Earth. Today in this room my ancestors are with me - We implore you to draft a treaty that not only upholds our land use rights to hunt and fish as sovereign nations, but even more importantly, insures the mental and physical health of the Penobscot children, and a treaty that assures the future existence of my people.

Allow me to present a series of facts that describe the devastating impact of dioxin in my community:

• My nation of nearly 500 live on an island in the river, where seven (7) pulp and paper mills dwell both upstream and downstream from us
• Dioxin is a by-product of the chlorine bleaching process in making paper, discharged from all 7 of these mills
• Dioxin is a highly potent toxic chemical that causes cancer and other devastating health effects that is being poured into the river daily
• My people have survived on the fish from this river, now we are dying from it
• Neither dioxin or cancer is indigenous to the Penobscot people, however they are both pervasive in my tribal community
• My people face up to 3 times the state and national cancer rate, moreover, those that are dying of cancer are dying at younger and younger ages, our reproductive generation. This means that unless you take action to eliminate dioxin and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs), there will be no Penobscots living on the island by the end of the next century.

With this, I humbly, respectfully and desperately urge you to draft a treaty that insures the existence of the Penobscot and other indigenous peoples who are so disproportionately impacted by dioxin. That the breast and spoon we feed our babies with is not filled with cancer, diabetes, learning disabilities, and attention deficit. That we may have the basic human right to provide to our children the same foods our ancestors provided with a clear conscience, not the present knowledge that we as mothers are party to their future cancer and diseases.

Today, you have been blessed with the unique world power to warrant the survival of the Penobscot people and indigenous peoples all over the world. We ask that you please at this moment, think of your mothers, daughters, sisters, and grandmothers and find the courage to use this unique world power to take action to eliminate dioxin and POPs creating a promise that I may look upon my great-grand children on our common mother, the earth, as my ancestors look upon me now in this room.

	Woliwon, Thank you
	Ms. Sockbeson gave small broom-shaped prayer charms, made from sweetgrass and ash wood by her village elders, to various prominent figures involved in the POPs negotiations to remind them of the important global clean-up task they are undertaking. US delegate George Moose, Ambassador to the UN in Geneva receives prayer charm.

[The following oral and written intervention was submitted by Faith Gemmill, Arctic Village, Alaska and on behalf of the Gwich'in.]

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I wish to respectfully offer a statement on behalf of the Gwich'in Nations and the Indigenous Environmental Network a participating member of IPEN, the International POPs Elimination Network.

I speak before you today as a young Gwich'in woman with an infant daughter and with a deep commitment to ensuring her future and the continuation of the Indigenous way of life. Lessons are passed from one generation to the next of our deep reverence and respect for the Earth and all life forms that she supports. I am here to respectfully request the drafting of a treaty that helps to ensure the protection of the environment that is essential to the cultural, physical and spiritual survival of all Indigenous peoples. One cannot separate the health of the environment from the health of our peoples.

In my community which is 110 miles above the Arctic Circle in Northeastern Alaska, USA, we have noticed alarming changes and disturbing impacts which may be attributed to POPs. I would like to cite a few examples.

• Hunters have noticed lesions and spots on the internal organs of the Caribou, as well as deformation in the antlers and a decrease in size of the male caribou and calves.
• Lesions found on the inner flesh of the ground squirrels.
• The bears which eat the ground squirrels behave strangely as if in a state of starvation in the Fall when they should be retaining fat reserves for hibernation.
• All of the fish in one of our lakes died with no indication of sickness or ill health.
• The most notable health effect of our people is the increased rate of cancer. Every other death in our communities is caused by cancer and younger people are becoming more susceptible.

In conclusion, on behalf of my people in northern Alaska, I implore world leaders and governments to develop language that will ultimately achieve the elimination of POPs to restore health to our environment that it may continue to sustain all life.

From: "BioRegion Computer Mapping" biomap@spirit.com.au

Sept. 25, 1999
NATIONAL TOXIC NETWORK REPORT
Mariann Lloyd-Smith
Coordinator, National Toxics Network Inc.
T&F 02 62885881
Mobile 0413 621557
Email: biomap@spirit.com.au
http://www.spirit.com.au/~biomap

The International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) Conference held in Geneva on the weekend proceeding INC3 was an invaluable opportunity to both meet and network with over 100 NGO activists involved in the elimination of the persistent organic pollutants.

Sunday concentrated on preparation for INC3 and began with presentations from the United Nations Environment Program and World Wide Fund for Nature on the issues to be addressed in the negotiations. This was followed by a range of papers focusing on dioxin including a presentation from Japanese medical NGOs showing a correlation between atmospheric dioxin and infant mortality. Dr Peterson Myers, the co author of ‘Our Stolen Future’ spoke of he recently released US Academy of Sciences Report on Hormonally Active Agents in the Environment. He stressed that contamination is now global, its impacts occur at a level much lower than previously thought and that the time frame of concern has been extended to life long impacts from foetal exposure. He concluded with examples of synergistic impacts such as PCBs and Epstein Barr viruses providing a significant risk factor for Non Hodgkins Lymphomas, whose incidence is on the rise. His final comment encapsulated the need for a global POPs Treaty, "with a human dominated planet there is nowhere to hide from our neighbours’ mistakes".

. . . A final presentation was made by Dr Patandin from the Netherlands who presented her findings on a study of breast fed babies and their exposure to PCBs. It demonstrated that although breast fed babies had higher levels of POPs contaminants in their blood up until 42 months, the worst impacts of POPs had already occurred in utero and that breast feeding was still preferable despite POPs contamination of breast milk. Women from the Inuit living in the Arctic circle and American First Nation provided disturbing data comparing indigenous breast milk contamination of up to 8 times that of their non indigenous counterparts.

INC3 ­ NEGOTIATIONS FOR A POPS TREATY

On the Monday following (6th Sept.), 113 countries met to continue negotiations for the final phase out of the persistent organic pollutants; DDT, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) dieldrin, aldrin, endrin, chlordane, toxaphene, mirex, heptachlor, HCB (hexachlorobenzene) and for the reduction and elimination of the sources of dioxins and furans. These 'dirty dozen' are transboundary intergenerational poisons, which require an effective global cooperative elimination strategy in the form of an international POPs treaty. This was the third meeting out of five to negotiate this treaty. It is important to acknowledge that the process to develop the treaty has limited equity in that wealthy countries send large delegations (eg 22 from USA, 8 Australians) while other nations can only finance one delegate who may not even have English as a first language. At INC3 this lack of equity became most evident when 2 or 3 contact groups were formed to discuss topical issues and were held concurrently with plenary negotiations. Similarly, NGOs are only permitted interventions after all countries have completed their discussions.

There were 140 environmental NGOs present at the commencement of the six days of negotiation, many had been financed by the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) and its supporting organisation, Physicians for Social Responsibility.

The government negotiations quickly came to a broad agreement on a ban for eight of the 12 POPs. PCBs remained a sticking point due to the expense of replacing PCB based transformers currently used in many countries' electricity grids. The debate surrounding the two by-product POPs, dioxins and furans vacillated between arguments for source elimination and the more pragmatic softer approach supported by Australia for 'achievable' reductions.

DIOXIN ELIMINATION OR JUST ACHIEVABLE REDUCTION.

Another major government debate at INC3 focused on dioxin source elimination versus achievable dioxin reduction. Arguments on whether the treaty should aim to eliminate emissions or just take effective action to reduce emissions raged all week. Australia predictably took the position that the aim of elimination of byproducts was not practical and that the treaty must be flexible and not overly prescriptive ! Yet, the most interesting comment came from China who told the plenary that dioxin was such a new issue that it was not even included in the Chinese dictionary! The dioxin debate is to continue at INC4.

EXEMPTIONS TO THE TREATY

A number of exemptions to the POPs treaty were proposed. The United States listed five exemptions, which resulted in considerable debate with only one being agreed to, that is, POPs used in laboratories for the ‘reference standards’. United States had proposed that ‘de minimis’ quantities occurring in products should be exempt. This prompted an intense discussion about what actually was meant by this term and how much product contamination should be tolerated. The USA responded by suggesting that 50ppm of PCB could be considered as ‘de minimis’ ! Under the Australian PCB Management Plan, PCBs at 50ppm are considered scheduled waste and are required to be destroyed in approved destruction facilities.

USA also proposed an exemption for those chemicals already with end users at the time of ratification of the POPs treaty. Surprisingly, Australia despite its own Chemclear program supported this exemption on the grounds that although we would collect our unwanted stocks we could not demand the same of other countries! Community NGOs and a number of governments considered support for such an exemption would ultimately result in a thriving black market in banned POPs chemicals.

COMMERCIAL CONFIDENTIALITY FOR POPS DATA !

There was considerable opposition by many countries to a clause in the proposed draft treaty that would provide confidentiality protection for commercial information about POPs. Cameroon led the charge with statement that confidentiality was counter to the transparency which should underlie information exchange that is needed for the effective elimination of POPs. Interestingly, USA supported by the deletion of the paragraph, which referred to commercial in confidence protection of data. Yet, it became clear from the following discussion that an earlier paragraph which referred to information exchange in a manner that is consistent with a country's laws, regulations, and practices, still provided a mechanism by which secrecy of POPs data could be maintained. As NGOs we considered this issue important enough to register an intervention. The intervention listed information that is essential for an effective POPs treaty and that should never be kept secret via confidentiality provision.

For a full report on the negotiations, visit the Earth Negotiations Bulletin website at http://www.iisd.ca/linkages

or a copy of the official report of negotiations is available on the UNEP website at http://irptc.unep.ch/pops