Environmentalists have abandoned their outright opposition to one of the worldâs most virulent toxins â the pesticide DDT. The concession comes at the start of talks among 120 nations in Johannesburg aimed at agreeing a treaty to ban twelve of the most dangerous persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
During negotiations on the UN treaty last year, Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature demanded a global ban on DDT. It has been outlawed in most industrialised countries since being identified as a health hazard and wildlife killer in Rachel Carsonâs seminal 1960s book, Silent Spring. But the greens have bowed to criticism from doctors, who say that the pesticide remains their best weapon against the mosquitoes that carry malaria. The disease kills more than a million people a year.
Last year, WWFâs Clifton Curtis said a total ban on DDT was necessary to âfocus decision-takers on finding alternativesâ. But this year he says âexemptions should be allowed for DDTâs continued use against malariaâ.
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âDiluting clausesâ
Despite their climb-down on DDT, greens will join the European Union in opposing further concessions to manufacturers of the âdirty dozenâ chemicals named in the treaty. They oppose amendments by the US, Australia and Japan to dilute banning clauses with phrases such as âwhere feasible and practicableâ and âwhere realisableâ.
The âdirty dozenâ are the pesticides aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex and toxaphene; the industrial chemicals PCBs and hexachlorobenzene; and combustion by-products dioxins and furans. In August, the UN Environment Programme launched a two-year study to assess whether other POPs should be added to the list.
The chemicals are believed to cause cancers, birth defects and genetic abnormalities in animals and humans. They can travel the world in the air and oceans.
Many POPs appear to condense out in the cold Arctic air, poisoning whales and seals that are in turn eaten by humans. Inuit women in northern Canada have five times the levels of PCBs in their breast milk as women in southern Canada.
Safe disposal
Provisions of the treaty include banning their manufacture and use and providing money for the safe disposal of old stocks, currently in rusting drums across the developing world. âThe global treaty is a necessary defence against these poisons,â said UNEP director Klaus Toepfer.
In an effort to put pressure on the US delegation, Greenpeace activists last week blocked shipments of products from a polyvinyl factory in Lake Charles, Louisiana, which it says emits dioxins to the atmosphere.
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