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
