African Nations Learn How to Refuse Entry to Dangerous Chemicals 

Naftali Mungai / ENS News 14jun00

NAIROBI, Kenya - Delegates from 20 African countries are attending a regional awareness raising workshop here to focus on hazardous chemicals and pesticides in international trade.

The workshop on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure mandated by the Rotterdam Convention began Tuesday in Nairobi. It is aimed at ensuring that African nations are aware that they have the legal right to be informed of any plans to ship hazardous substances that are subject to national bans or severe restrictions into their countries. They have the legal right to refuse these shipments.

International concern over the risks resulting from uncontrolled trade in extremely hazardous chemicals and pesticides led to the adoption of the Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade - the Rotterdam Convention.

The legally binding treaty, adopted at Rotterdam, the Netherlands in September1998, has now been signed by 80 countries and ratified by three.

Photo courtesy International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)

The Rotterdam Convention helps protect farmers, workers and consumers in developing countries from exposure to highly toxic pesticides. The treaty controls the trade in hazardous chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) used by industry and in harmful pesticides, such as lindane, parathion, DDT and aldrin, used in agriculture.

The core of the treaty is the PIC provision which states that 29 listed chemicals must not be exported from any PIC member country unless the shipment is agreed to by the importing country.

The convention legally requires exporters to notify recipient countries of exports of hazardous substances subject to national bans or severe restrictions. It is expected that more industrial chemicals and pesticides will be added to the 29 currently included in the PIC procedure.

The global market for pesticides continues to grow, with the fastest growing markets in developing countries. African farmers are increasingly using pesticides on export crops.

Workers in Malawi pack dahl lentils for export - Photo courtesy ICRISAT

"With some 70,000 different chemicals on the market and 1,500 new ones being introduced every year, many governments are unable to monitor and manage the many potentially dangerous substances crossing their borders every day," said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Many chemicals and pesticides are harmful to humans, domestic animals and ecosystems. They may cause cancer or birth defects, or enter the food chain and accumulate in the tissues of people or animals. Chemicals such as asbestos which is still exported around the world, are now known to be carcinogenic.

According to UNEP, the past use and trade of these chemicals has left a legacy of lasting problems. Several PIC substances whose use has been banned and phased out in industrialized countries are still widely used in developing countries and in countries with economies in transition.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization warns that many pesticides, such as DDT, chlordane and heptachlor, which have been banned or whose use has been severely restricted in Europe and North America, are still marketed and used in African countries. Also, many old, often highly toxic, organophosphorus pesticide formulations continue to be used in Africa because of their low price.

Pesticides are used to combat the tsetse fly. Flies like this one transmit a parasite that causes the fatal sleeping sickness, trypanosomiasis. Tsetse fly disease, or nagana, affects cattle, horses, and goats in southern and central Africa.

The World Health Organization estimates that one million people worldwide are affected by pesticide poisoning yearly and that about 20,000 people die every year from using ("registered") pesticides.

Inadequate control of imported pesticides often results in improperly labeled pesticide containers, pesticides of inferior quality, misuse and overuse of pesticides and poisoning of humans and animals.

Many countries in Africa have reported acute poisoning because highly toxic pesticide formulations cannot be handled safely.

Protective clothing is often too expensive and, in many cases, there is reluctance to use it because of the hot and humid climate in these countries.

The Rotterdam Convention aims to create a first line of defense against chemical risks by empowering governments with the information and procedures they need to monitor and control cross-border trade in these substances.

At the national level further measures are required to reduce the risks involved in the use and transport of pesticides. The challenge for global agriculture is to produce more food with less pesticides, in a sustainable way.

Pesticide sprayer at work - Photo courtesy Virginia Tech Pesticide Programs

The PIC list includes the following hazardous ("registered") pesticides: 2,4,5-T, aldrin, binapacryl, captafol, chlordane, chlordimeform, chlorobenzilate, DDT, dieldrin, dinoseb,1,2-dibromoethane (EDB), fluoroacetamide, HCH, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, lindane, mercury compounds, pentachlorophenol, toxaphene, and certain formulations of monocrotophos, methamidophos, phosphamidon, methyl-parathion, and parathion.

The industrial chemicals are: crocidolite, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), polychlorinated terphenyls (PCT), and tris (2,3 dibromopropyl) phosphate.

Twelve of these chemicals - the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) - are also the subject of negotiations to minimize emissions and releases into the environment.

The ongoing negotiations also address the accumulation of unwanted and obsolete stockpiles of pesticides and toxic chemicals, particularly in developing countries. The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee is focusing on a list of 12 POPs grouped into three categories:

1. Pesticide POPs: aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex and toxaphene

2. Industrial chemical POPs: hexachlorobenzene and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)

3. POPs that are unintended byproducts of industrial processes: dioxins and furans

More information about the Rotterdam Convention is available online at: http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FaoInfo/Agricult/AGP/AGPP/Pesticid/PIC/pichome.htm

A detailed outline of international negotiations towards management of hazardous chemicals is online at: http://www.iisd.ca/chemical/chemicalsintro.html

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