THE NATIONAL Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) is in the process of developing a national plan which, when completed and implemented, will allow Jamaica to become party to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).
The project is being funded by the Global Environment Facility at a cost of over $14 million.
Dr. David Smith, Programme Specialist on Energy, Climate Change and Environment with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), while addressing a stakeholders meeting at the Terra Nova Hotel in Kingston recently, explained that the move was an "important one" as the implementation of the plan was key to Jamaica becoming party to the international agreement.
CHEMICALS
Adopted in May 2001, the Stockholm Convention is designed to protect living organisms from the release of POPs into the environment. POPs are chemicals, inclusive of insecticides and pesticides, which once released into the atmosphere, can remain undamaged for long periods and can be toxic to humans and wildlife. There are 151 signatories and 38 parties to the agreement.
Dr. Smith said Jamaica has long been focusing on eliminating POPs through the banning and destruction of certain kinds of pesticides and insecticides.
"Some stocks have been collected and destroyed, air quality regulations are being drafted and a draft hazardous waste policy is being developed and is in the final stages of being completed. All these are very important," he pointed out.
Dr. Claude Davis, principal consultant at the international consulting firm Claude Davis and Associates, explained that the local project would involve the setting up of a co-ordinating mechanism and process organisation, in this case NEPA; the compilation of POPs inventories and assessment of national infrastructure and capacity in terms of the storage, use and disposal of POPs; and the formulation of a national implementation strategy, that will outline ways of reducing or eliminating POPs.
PRIORITY ASSESSMENTS
It is expected that the inventories as well as the setting of objectives and priority assessments will be done by May 2004; the implementation plan formulated by the end of June and submitted to stakeholders for suggestions by July, before being forward to Cabinet for approval by the end of December. It is expected that by the end of this project, Jamaica will be able to ratify and implement the Stockholm Convention.
Once Jamaica becomes party to the agreement, it will have to put measures in place to eliminate or reduce the release of POPs into the environment, 12 of which have already been identified and are often referred to as the "dirty dozen". These are aldrin, dieldrin, mirex, chlordane, endrin, toxa-phene, DDT (used for malarial control), heptachlor, hexachlorbenzene and polychlorinated biphenyls (man-made products used commercially), and dioxins and furans, which are created through the burning of garbage and fuel.
The country will also be required to support the transition to safer alternatives, target additional POPs for action, clean-up old stockpiles and equipment containing the chemicals and encourage harmony of efforts towards a POPs free future.
Dr. Davis said that ultimately, it was destruction and not just disposal that was important, in which case the chemicals would have to be exported to be destroyed by those with the appropriate technology or the technology be brought in. He indicated that already, the Jamaica Customs Department has been sensitising its staff as well as developing codes to better categorise POPs so they do not enter the country.
He noted that while Jamaica had already banned the importation of these chemicals, there was need to manage emissions from burning, and noted that public education was necessary in this effort.
Stakehlders in the process are the Ministries of Agriculture, Environment, Finance and Planning, Health, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, and Labour and Social Security, as well as private sector groups; non-governmental groups; representatives of academia and professional associations.
- JIS
