From the POPs INC1, Treaty Negotiations, Montreal, Canada for the first round of negotiations of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-1), 1998

Representatives from 92 countries and over 100 public interest and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) met in Montreal June 28 - July 3, 1998 for the first round of talks on reducing and eliminating world wide use and emissions of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) - which are products and by-products of various industrial processes such as pesticides, manufacturing and incineration. POPs such as DDT and dioxins remain in the environment for years. The meeting focused on a list of 12 persistent chemicals, including nine pesticides. This list includes aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachor, hexachlorobenzene, and toxaphene. The remaining chemicals on the list are dioxins, furans, mirex, and PCBs. The United Nations Environmental Programme Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-1) had their first meeting for an International Legally Binding Instrument for Implementing International Action on Certain Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). The INC1 started with opening remarks, election of the Bureau, and discussion of the INC1 international body and presentations by countries and their positions on POPs.

A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that exposure to very low doses of certain POPs can lead to cancer, birth defects, damage to the central and peripheral nervous systems, diseases of the immune system, reproductive disorders, genetic abnormalities and interference with normal infant and child development in people and animals. POPs can travel through the air and water thousands of miles from their source. Ninety-six percent of human dioxin exposure is through diet. Meat, fish, and milk are the primary carriers of these chemicals. POPs, including PCBs, pesticide DDT and dioxins - bioaccumulate in people whose diets include large amounts of wild game and especially big fish, marine mammals and other aquatic resources.

It has been found that POPs migrate from warmer climates of the south to colder climates of Great Lakes, Canada, Alaska, and other broader Arctic regions. Because many POPs vaporize at warmer temperatures and condense as the air gets cooler, POPs systematically migrate to cooler latitudes. POPs accumulation in the Arctic region is particularly significant because little or no POPs are produced or used there. At this distant location, POPs concentrate in animals and humans at potentially dangerous levels. Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately impacted in these cooler climates where their diet depends on subsistence.

A newly formed coalition called the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN), which is a coalition of more than 75 public interest groups and NGOs from around the world also attended the INC1 negotiations. IEN is a member of IPEN. IPEN groups called POPs "a global biological time-bomb as serious as nuclear weapons." IPEN called for strong recognition that North-South cooperation would be essential for a meaningful treaty. "The existing burden of these chemicals from industries in developed countries, together with the burden from rapidly growing industries in southern countries, will in large part determine the chemical fate of the earth," said Eugene Caimcross of the Environmental Justice Networking Forum in South Africa.

Without any doubt, the efforts of IPEN and its participating organizations made good and strong impressions and impacted the tone and rhetoric on INC1. As most of you already know, the new Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme, Dr. Klaus Topfer, attended and spoke at the IPEN Forum on the Sunday before negotiations started in Montreal. Then on Monday morning, he presented himself for a photo opportunity in front of the NGO silent vigil (pregnant bellies for a Toxics Free Future. This silent vigil reminded world delegates that these negotiations have one primary objective to protect the developing fetus and the young infant (and their correlates in other species) from poisons that threaten the integrity of this world's future generations.

This message was reflected beginning on Monday morning with opening remarks from Dr. Topfer to the delegates. The draft report of the INC1 says Topfer's opening remarks stressed: "Toxic, persistent, easily transported over long distances, and found throughout every region of the world, POPs represented a truly global threat. Given that information, he called on Governments to act decisively, stating that the ultimate goal must be the elimination of POPs releases, not simply their better management. A global POPs convention had to promote a shift away from the production and use of POPs and the processes that generated them."

RESPONSE TO IPEN/NGO INTERVENTIONS:

The Inuit Circumpolar Conference (IC) - representing Inuit peoples of Canada, U.S., Russia and Greenland - emerged as a strong voice at the INC. ICC Canadian Vice President, Sheila Watt-Cloutier received applause after her intervention - which is unusual. The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) was also present and interviewed as an NGO. IEN began networking with a few of the other Indigenous Peoples that were present. IEN is looking to increase Indigenous Peoples participation in future INC meetings.

Even though most of the IPEN organizing has so far taken place in North America, many delegates and others commented on the size and spectrum of the non-North American NGO delegation that stayed for some or all of the INC meeting. Some of the countries represented included: Mexico, Brazil, Peru, South Africa, Tunisia, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Malaysia and Russia.

There was very good cooperation among all participating IPEN organizations and strong feelings that future collaboration can be helpful and constructive. IEN is working towards raising funds to hire Indigenous organizations that will educate and encourage Indigenous representation in all future INC meetings.

In a few countries (Brazil, Philippines, Russia) there were successful efforts to use the POPs INC in Montreal to help focus attention on POPs issues at home. In future INCs this model can be expanded to other countries. It can also be useful in focusing media attention to both the global process and to local POPs issues in various regional media markets across North America.

The next INC2 meeting has been scheduled for January 25-29, 1999 in Nairobi, Kenya. At this INC2 meeting, it will take up a number of substantive issues identified at INC1, including technical information needs, criteria for identifying additional POPs for international action, and issues related to implementation of an agreement, including technical and financial assistance for developing countries and economies in transition. IEN and IPEN are making plans for NGO activities at INC2, which might include an NGO skillshares, press briefings, and briefings for negotiators. IEN will be attempting to organize an Indigenous Peoples caucus before the start of INC2 in Nairobi.

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Statement of Tom Goldtooth, IEN Director

TOM GOLDTOOTH,COORDINATOR
INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK

Within our indigenous communities of North America, we find that definitely we are at a higher risk when it comes to the impacts of POPs, especially those that are in the colder climates where we're finding that the air pathways bring those toxic pollutants into our communities. And it's mostly a serious issue-for those populations that still maintain a subsistence culture, a land-based culture.

And we find that even with our communities, when we know that fish is contaminated, when we know that our food chain and our medicinal plants are contaminated, that it is not as simple as to issue a consumption advisory notice, that it is a form of genocide and ethnicide to our indigenous peoples. Because it's not as simple to tell our people not to consume this contaminated fish, because we have a very deep spiritual relationship to the land, to the ecosystem, to the fish nation, the plant nation. And when you disconnect us from that to where we cannot practice our traditional heritage, our spiritual ways by consuming the fish, that it is a spiritual genocide that takes place, a spiritual death. So in many of our communities as we're continuing to collect data that our fish do have high levels of Persistent Organic Pollutants in their systems, that our people are still continuing to consume the fish knowing that we will have high levels of these toxics in our bodies, and we do now.

Right down south of us, St. Regis Mohawk did a breast milk study of the women, and they have high levels of PCB in their breast milk. But a lot of the mothers are continuing to breast feed their children because that's part of the traditional teaching, the natural laws as we call them, that were handed down to us by our ancestors that we have to maintain.

And even the fish in the Columbia River in Western states is contaminated, and they are still continuing to eat this fish, because they have a reciprocal relationship, a spiritual relationship to the fish nation. These things have to be taken into consideration, that we have to stop definitely the production of Persistent Organic Pollutants and eliminate it throughout the world.

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Statement of Sheila Watt-Cloutier, ICC Canadian Vice President

SHEILA WATT-CLOUTIER
VICE PRESIDENT FOR CANADA,
INUIT CIRCUMPOLAR CONFERENCE

I was born in Kuujjuaq, a small northern village in Northern Quebec, lived very traditionally the first 10 years of my life, and travelled only by dog team the first ten years of my life. For those of you who are not familiar with all of the challenges that we Inuit are facing in the world, we are facing many on many fronts, and contaminants, of course, is one of the larger challenges that we're facing. To sustain ourselves during the last century of rapid change, and, believe me, it has been rapid, we have treasured more than ever our land and the food which comes from our land. The process of hunting and fishing followed by the sharing of this food and communal partaking of one animal is the time-honored ritual which links us to our ancestors and to each other. The power of this connection holds us together as a people. It gives us the spiritual strength and physical energy to survive all of those challenges that we face and cannot for one second be underestimated. So imagine for a moment, if you will, the emotions we feel, shock, panic, rage, grief, despair, once again, as we discover that the food which for generations has nourished us and keeps us whole physically and spiritually is now poisoning us. You go to the supermarket to buy your food; we go out to the land to hunt, fish, trap, and gather. The environment is our supermarket.

Over the last 5 - 10 years considerable research has been conducted in Canada, Greenland, and other northern countries that shows many POPs end up in the Arctic sink, our part of the world. Our living land itself, whose healing energy is so strong it can be palpably felt by anyone who has ever experienced that to feel that so strongly, is being made to quietly absorb layer upon layer of contaminants.

Once in the Arctic, many POPs enter the food web by accumulating and concentrating in whales, seals, polar bears, fish, and other animals that are staples of our diet.

Depending upon the amount and type of country food consumed, many Inuit have levels of certain POPs in their bodies well in excess of levels of concern defined by the Canadian Department of Health. The Canadian Arctic Contaminants Assessment Report and the State of the Environment, Arctic Environment Report prepared by all Arctic nations and published last year, show that levels of some POPs in some Inuit is 10 to 20 times higher than in most temperate regions, something that really would not be acceptable if it were in the Southern parts. Many of these contaminants are passed from one generation to the next through the placenta and breast milk. As we put our babies to our breasts, we feed them a noxious chemical cocktail that foreshadows neurological disorders, cancer, kidney failure, reproductive dysfunction, et cetera. This is the same for all peoples around most of the world, but that Inuit mothers, far from areas where POPs are manufactured and used, have to think twice before breast- feeding their infants is surely a wake-up call to the world.

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From the POPs INC2, Treaty Negotiations, Nairobi, Kenya for the second round of negotiations of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-2), January 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.

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Indigenous NGO's Attend UNEP Negotiations on Toxic Pollutants 1999

Press Release of IEN and ICC Indigenous Delegation

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

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From the POPs INC3, Treaty Negotiations, Geneva, Switzerland for the third round of negotiations of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3), September 1999

Statement by 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.

Finally, as a breast feeding mother the only way to rid my body of this multi-generational dioxin exposure is to nurse my baby, in turn this lowers my risk of breast cancer. However, at the same time, we nursing mothers are being told by experts in the field that even with this knowledge, out of the two evils, formula versus breastfeeding, that the breastfeeding is more beneficial for our babies, ultimately shedding our bodies of the dioxin into our future generations.

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                                 

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From the POPs INC3, Treaty Negotiations, Geneva, Switzerland for the third round of negotiations of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3), September 1999

Statement by 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.

Finally, as a breast feeding mother the only way to rid my body of this multi-generational dioxin exposure is to nurse my baby, in turn this lowers my risk of breast cancer. However, at the same time, we nursing mothers are being told by experts in the field that even with this knowledge, out of the two evils, formula versus breastfeeding, that the breastfeeding is more beneficial for our babies, ultimately shedding our bodies of the dioxin into our future generations.

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                                 

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From the POPs INC3, Treaty Negotiations, Geneva, Switzerland for the third round of negotiations of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3), September 1999

Statement by Faith Gemmill, Arctic Village, Alaska
and on behalf of the Gwich'in Nation

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.

As Indigenous peoples we are greatly concerned when we realize evidence which suggests that women, infants and children are very vulnerable to POPs. This threatens the very existence of our peoples and cultures. The multigenerational impacts threaten our hope of healthy, thriving and productive future generations.

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.

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