The term POPs is short for persistent organic pollutants. POPs are long-lived chemicals that build up in the food chain and slowly poison animals and humans. POPs travel thousands of miles and enter the soil, oceans, rivers, plants, and animals far from where they are produced or used. Indigenous peoples who maintain a land-based culture can be heavily exposed to POPs from their diet. In this way, POPs threaten our culture and our future. The most well-known examples of POPs are PCBs (transformer fluids), DDT (a pesticide) and dioxin, an unwanted byproduct of manufacturing and one of the most toxic man-made substances known. Historical tribal hunting and fishing rights are undermined by POPs contamination. What is the value of a right to fish if the fish are contaminated? Dioxin, PCBs, DDT and nine other chemicals are considered to be "a serious threat to human health" throughout the world by the United Nations. In fact, governments of the world are negotiating a treaty to remove them from the environment. It is critical that this U.N. treaty recognize the serious impacts POPs have on the future of Indigenous Peoples.

Where are POPs Found?

POPs are found in common places. Electrical transformers contain PCBs, Dioxins, furans and other POPs are created during the manufacture of paper and vinyl plastic, which is used to make children's toys, clothing, IV bags and tubing, flooring, pipes, and siding. When vinyl is incinerated or burned in a backyard trash fire, dioxin is formed again. Dioxins are also formed during the manufacture of magnesium and other metals. The POPs pesticides are no longer legally used in North America, but they are used in other countries. Since POPs do not easily degrade and can travel thousands of miles, they can still be found in soil, lakes, rivers, fish, animals, and people long after they are used.

Polluted Food

Indigenous Peoples have special cultural and spiritual relationships to traditional foods that create increased consumption patterns compared to non-Indigenous populations. Unfortunately, the main way POPs enter our bodies is through food. POPs have been found in eagles, cormorants, ducks, geese, caribou, reindeer, raccoons, rabbits, quail, deer, moose, bison, turtles, crocodiles, sheep, cows, polar bears, seals, whales, and fish. POPs accumulate in fat and their concentration increases at each step of the food chain. For example, PCBs have been found to accumulate in the livers of sheep. In addition, dieldrin, a pesticide, accumulates in the wool of sheep that eat from contaminated land. Advisories prohibiting or discouraging the consumption of traditional foods affect Indigenous Peoples' right to practice our cultural and spiritual ways. Store-bought food does not solve the contamination problem, since it may also be contaminated.

In many areas of our Indigenous territories, our communities are being told not to eat the contaminated fish and animals. Advisories are being posted everywhere. According to a report by Health Canada, "Great Lakes residents who consume larger amounts of certain species of contaminated fish and wildlife than the general population are at an increased risk of exposure to toxic pollutants." The report names affected subpopulations that include anglers, their families, and Indigenous Peoples.

To Indigenous Peoples, fishing and hunting are not sport or recreation, but part of a spiritual, cultural, social and economic lifestyle that has sustained us from time immemorial. In some areas, fishing and hunting rights are treaty rights. When we no longer can eat fish and wild meat, high protein food is often replaced with junk food like potato chips and soft drinks. In addition, the active social part of harvesting of traditional foods is replaced by a less active lifestyle. The junk food diet is less healthy and has contributed to problems with obesity, high blood pressure and chronic diseases like diabetes. Cutting off traditional food supplies from Indigenous Peoples could be a form of cultural genocide.

Children Are Affected Most
Dezbah Evans, Yuchi/Diné

Children are more vulnerable than adults to many kinds of pollution, and POPs are no exception. Toxic exposures during fetal development, infant life, and childhood can have lifelong effects including increased susceptibility to cancer, and damage to the immune and reproductive systems. These health effects may not be apparent until much later in life, making them difficult to link to early-life exposures. For example, a study of children whose mothers ate PCB-contaminated fish from the Great Lakes during pregnancy showed that they had lower intelligence and problems with reading comprehension. These damaging effects were still observed when the children were 11 years old. After birth, POPs can also enter children during breast feeding. Many POPs have been detected at significant levels in the breast milk of Mohawk and Inuit women as well as women from many countries worldwide. The average breast-fed baby in North America grossly exceeds the World Health Organization "acceptable" daily intake of dioxin.

We have a responsibility to our future generations to leave them the Earth as it was left to us. By threatening the health and survival of our children, POPs threaten our future generations.

A Serious Health Threat to Humans