Meeting
by UNEP-Linked Stockholm Convention to Address
Issues Surrounding Controversial Pesticide
November 2008, Geneva/Nairobi
- Boosting cost effective and environmentally-friendly
alternatives to the malaria-controlling
chemical DDT will be high on the international
agenda when delegates meet in early November.
Countries, industry,
research institutes and non governmental
organizations will review an interim report
aimed at setting up a global partnership
on alternatives to DDT and ways in which
these can be distributed to countries and
communities at risk.
DDT is one of 12 substances
controlled under the Stockholm Convention-
a treaty designed to control and eliminate
persistent organic pollutants or POPs.
The chemical can be effective
at controlling the mosquitoes that carry
the deadly malarial parasite. But experts
are concerned that DDT and its break-down
products can have a damaging effect on the
wider environment including human health.
Countries are permitted
under the Stockholm Convention to obtain
exemptions allowing them to use DDT to treat
the inside walls of houses to kill the mosquitoes
that carry the malaria parasite to humans.
But the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP), which hosts
the Convention’s secretariat, is concerned
that DDT remains an old chemical and that
safer alternatives need to be promoted giving
governments greater choice.
Achim Steiner, UNEP
Executive Director, said:” We are trapped
in something of a chicken and egg situation.
DDT works and so countries seek, quite understandably,
exemptions to continue its use in order
to save lives even though the wider impacts
may be deleterious. Yet this also gives
few incentives to governments and industry
to develop and introduce more environmentally-friendly
alternatives”.
“What we need is scientifically
robust and economically defensible choices
and signals that alternatives are available
that reflect the health and sustainability
demands of the 21st century-signals too
that research and development towards even
more superior compounds will be welcomed
and encouraged by the international community.
DDT is an old substance, there has to be
a better way. We need to build the confidence
of governments and malaria-stricken communities
to invest in genuine alternatives that can
be deployed straight away so that DDT becomes
a weapon of last resort,” he added.
Around 80 high level
representatives from 26 Governments, industry,
research and non-Governmental organizations
are meeting in Geneva to evaluate the global
partnership on alternatives.
The review of the interim
report will address how to fill numerous
information gaps on mosquito vector control,
increasing capacity in malaria endemic countries
to employ alternative methods, developing
new formulations of pesticides and researching
new non-chemical alternatives.
These issues will be
considered in the context of the urgent
need to reduce the malaria burden, especially
in Africa, and to minimize and ultimately
eliminate the use of DDT for vector control.
Donald Cooper, Executive
Secretary of the Stockholm Convention Secretariat
said: “We need to win this fight on all
fronts. DDT affects human health and the
environment in places far away from where
it is used because this chemical is transported
through the air and deposited in colder
northern climates.
DDT accumulates and
persists in fatty tissues of humans and
animals and is known to cause long term
adverse effects, while malaria continues
to kill over one million children and adults
per year mainly in Africa. With a united
front, we can overcome both these scourges
in the most intelligent way possible,” he
added.
The Stockholm Convention
is ratified by 160 countries. DDT is one
of the twelve chemicals listed as a persistent
organic pollutant under the Convention.
The conference
runs from 3-5 November in Geneva. The Stockholm
Convention will use the business plan to
promote a global partnership for developing
and deploying alternatives to DDT. This
plan will be reviewed for endorsement by
the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm
Convention at its next meeting in May 2009.
Notes to Editors
Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson/Head of
Media
Anne-France White, UNEP Associate Information
Officer
