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A Global POPs Convention Achieved
Following six days of grueling meetings and negotiations in Johannesburg South Africa, delegates from 122 countries finalized the draft text of a legally-binding convention to minimize and eliminate some of the world's most toxic chemicals--persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), a diplomatic conference will be held in Stockholm Sweden, in May 2001 for nations to sign the convention.
ICC Canada intervened in all five of these negotiations in Montreal, Nairobi, Geneva, Bonn, and Johannesburg. Our message has been heard loud and clear. The draft convention notes that POPs are of particular concern in the Arctic where they bioaccumulate in the fatty tissue of marine mammals and other animals hunted and eaten by Inuit and Indigenous peoples. This is the first global convention to specifically reference the Arctic as a vulnerable region. The famous conventions that resulted from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, including the Convention on Conservation of Biological Diversity, focused on other portions of the globe, particularly tropical rain forests and deserts. Since then concerns with climate change and ozone depletion as well as POPs has redirected the attention of many nations to the Arctic. This trend will continue.
Achieving this convention was no easy matter and implementing it will take time, energy, effort, goodwill, and money. The dynamics of the negotiations saw the developing and developed worlds taking rather different positions. Essentially, the developing world demanded transfer of technology, expertise and money to enable them to agree to the convention. ICC Canada cooperated with Dene, Metis, and Yukon first nations in intervening, and drew upon the media savvy of the World Wide Fund for Nature, Canadian Arctic Resources Committee and the International POPs Elimination Network. Klaus Topfer, Executive Director of UNEP and Mohammed El-Ashry, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Environment Facility proved themselves in these negotiations to be friends of the Inuit. Our thanks and appreciation go to all who helped us bring the Inuit voice to the attention of the globe.
At the beginning of negotiations we had many doubts and concerns about the position and role adopted by the delegation representing the Government of Canada. Concerned primarily with being onside with the United States and industry, it took some time for the Canadian delegation to appreciate the cultural and health implications of the issue to northern Indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, the delegation was gracious throughout to Indigenous peoples observing at the back of the room and welcomed our representative on the official delegation. In some important respects such as monitoring the effectiveness of the convention, Canada's position came to reflect the advocacy of Indigenous peoples in favour of a comprehensive, verifiable, and rigorously implemented convention.
It is both important and appropriate to mention one Canadian by name--John Buccini. A civil servant in the federal Department of the Environment, John chaired and generally oversaw the negotiations. Exhibiting tact, a high level of diplomatic skill, and ensuring states concentrated on the task at hand, John "herded the cats." In so doing he upheld the best traditions of Canada's foreign policy and in the final session did so against the backdrop of the failed climate change talks in the Netherlands.
This issue of Silarjualiriniq prints the Johannesburg speech of Sheila Watt-Cloutier, President of ICC Canada, and Vice-President of ICC. As well, it includes two important pieces that illustrate well the dialogue around a key issue that at one stage threatened to derail the convention--the use of DDT. Banned for many years in Canada, DDT is used in tropical and temperate countries to control Malaria. Amir Attaran's opinion editorial on this issue which appeared in The Globe and Mail during negotiations in Johannesburg, in our view falsely accused the Government of Canada of holding to policies and positions that threatened the health of others. Our reply not only set the record straight but interestingly, defended the honour of the Government of Canada. That northern Indigenous peoples did this says much about the negotiating dynamic and the positive evolution of the federal government's position during negotiations.
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Speech Given by Ms. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, President of Inuit Circumpolar Conference (Canada) and Vice-President of Inuit Circumpolar Conference
Canadian Arctic Indigenous Peoples Against POPs (CAIPAP) Plenary Intervention INC 5 Johannesburg, South Africa
Monday December 4, 2000
Good morning. My name is Sheila Watt-Cloutier. I am President of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference Canada, and
Vice-President of ICC. I am joined this week by Chief Bob Charlie representing Yukon First Nations, Paul Okalik, Premier of the Government of Nunavut, and Larissa Abroutina, Vice-President of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North.
Looking at the view of ice forming on Frobisher Bay from my home in Iqaluit, and the warm Indian ocean north of Durban last week, solidified my thinking on the POPs convention. We still have a significant effort ahead to conclude a global POPs convention. But much has already been accomplished. There is a general understanding of the issues and a consensus on what to do about them. Let me remind you that Arctic indigenous peoples are hunting cultures. We eat what we hunt, as the recent BBC World story vividly shows. This story has surprised somethat we would eat animals raw-but this is our reality that we have presented to you for the last two years. I hope our messageensuring our health and cultural survivalis getting through.
We are impressed with the commitment by nations around the globe to address POPs, and we are firmly convinced that the job can be completed by Saturday.
We have spoken at all INCs about the Arctic dimension to this issue. Our traditional food is laced with POPs creating worrying long-term health problems. We are the globe's early warning indicator: early for you but late for us. The global dimension to this issue may still be fairly new to some of you, but we have been living with POPs for years.
We spend too much time dwelling on our differences and not enough stressing our commonalities. The POPs issue demonstrates our common need. What you are going to achieve this week will provide a foundation to protect us allparticularly our childrenno matter where they live.
A POPs convention must guarantee significant funding and technical support to the developing world and economies in transition. We are encouraged by Mr. El-Ashry's comments and we hope that many nations will announce POPs support and funding commitments this week.
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Larissa Abroutina, Vice-President for Health, Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) at the Global POPs Negotiations in Johannesburg.
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We are also encouraged by the political declaration signed by Ministers representing all eight Arctic nations in Barrow, Alaska in September, highlighting the need for a comprehensive and verifiable global POPs convention. That this declaration commits Arctic states to "co-ordinate closely in international fora on environmental and sustainable development matters of importance to the Arctic" is a real step toward an effective convention.
It is an honour for me to be in South Africa. Our struggles and challenges as indigenous peoples mirror many of the historic struggles of this remarkable country.
We wish you well this week.
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DDT Saves Lives
If this Week's UN Conference Bans the Notorious Pesticide,
it could Condemn Millions to Death by Malaria, Says Harvard Researcher Amir Attaran
Last year, malaria deaths in Africa reached an all-time high. Next year the disease will claim an estimated one million children. To visualize this number, imagine seven Boeing 747s, loaded with kids, crashing every day. Yet despite this crisis, political pressure, including from the Canadian government and environmental groups, is building at the United Nations Environment Program to pass a treaty that will "reduce and/or eliminate" one of the world's best anti-malarial tools. That tool is, of course, DDT. This week, as more than 120 countries gather in Johannesburg for final talks on a toxic chemicals treaty, Environment Canada is taking the position that DDT should be eliminated. That's also the position of a campaign being waged by more than 300 environ- mental groups. A who's who of the environmental movement, it includes names such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund; it is "demanding action to eliminate" DDT and its sources.
Such arguments are stunningly naive. From Silent Spring author Rachel Carson to today, the view that DDT is the most irredeemable of pollutants is only half true. Yes, it is a serious pollutant which causes bird populations to suffer -- but it also saves human populations from the plague of malaria.
In the 1950s, a global campaign against malaria used DDT spraying to eradicate the disease from the United States and Europe. Elsewhere it diminished greatly: Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) went from 2.8 million cases and 7,300 deaths to 17 cases and zero deaths in just a decade. Then American funds, which underwrote the eradication campaign, dried up, and overuse of DDT in agriculture bred DDT-resistant mosquitoes.
Back in malaria's grip, Sri Lanka returned to a half a million cases by 1969.
The benefits of DDT are realized at almost no environmental risk. Contrast DDT's use in malaria control -- where a few grams are sprayed, on the interior walls only, of a home -- with DDT's sanctioned abuse in Rachel Carson's day, when tonnes were sprayed directly into the environment and onto every farmer's fields. Analogizing the two situations is desperately wrong. The DDT use in the first case is small, contained, and saves lives; the second is large, indiscriminate, and grows cotton.
So, if DDT can be this successful, why ban or make it more difficult and expensive for the world's poorest, most disease-ridden countries to obtain? The World Wildlife Fund of Canada's Web site calls DDT "nefarious," and says the group is "campaigning for a global phase-out by 2007." This effort stems from the observation that DDT is an "endocrine disrupter" whose ability to cause harm (like Herman Melville's Moby Dick and all excellent monsters since) is both indiscriminate and vast. The WWF indicts DDT chillingly: as a carcinogen, a teratogen, an immuno-supressant.
Conspicuously absent from such claims are scientific studies to demonstrate these alleged health effects. In 50 years, hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people have been exposed to DDT through malaria control. Scientists can -- and have -- studied the effect of DDT exposure. Yet the scientific literature contains not one reliable example of any adverse human health effect linked to DDT. Years ago, American scientists thought they detected an increased risk of breast cancer; eight later attempts by researchers across the globe failed to replicate this observation. For all the scrutiny DDT has received, neither scientists nor the WWF can name one negative health effect which has been independently confirmed as being related to DDT exposure.
Faced with this troublesome fact, WWF's stock answer is that experiments in animals using extreme doses of DDT suggest there could be a danger to humans, and so they call for a precautionary ban. Why should speculative risks detected in animal studies justify banning a substance known to control malaria? This is analogous to stepping into speeding traffic as a "precaution" against tripping on a crack in the sidewalk.
If precaution matters, Africa should use more DDT against malaria, not less. DDT house-spraying is among the cheapest, most effective interventions against the disease. Our research at Harvard estimates that the alternatives may cost as much as $1.4 billion each year - a far cry from the $50 million of global aid for malaria control today, and an impossible sum for poor countries
with health budgets of less than $10 per person. Besides, affordable alternatives may not work, as South Africa learned when it stopped using DDT and witnessed malaria cases soar 25-fold. Its clinics (and morgues) swamped, South Africa returned to using DDT this year.
If the wealthiest, most scientifically advanced, and least malarial sub-Saharan country cannot make do without DDT, how can Congo or Mozambique? For the 400-strong scientists and doctors (including Nobel laureates) who recently signed a statement urging that DDT continue to be available, the answer is clear.
Yet not only is Environment Canada arguing in the Johannesburg treaty negotiations that DDT should be eliminated once and for all, it has also proposed that the treaty not include a financial aid mechanism to help poor countries finance the alternatives. Canada is alone among wealthy countries in advocating this parsimony. Such policies literally kill. The Chrtien government can do better. At this week's treaty discussions, there's is still time to get it right.
Dr. Amir Attaran is the director of International Health Research at the Center for International Development, Harvard University, and is also a Canadian environmental lawyer.
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We Can All Win
Sheila Watt-Cloutier,
Robert Charlie, and John Crump
Monday, December 11, 2000
Amir Attaran's portrayal of Canada's position on global management of chemicals (DDT Saves Lives Dec. 5), currently being negotiated in Johannesburg, misrepresents what is going on.
Indigenous peoples from Northern Canada here in Johannesburg are replying not only to defend Canada but also to set the record straight. We do so because Mr. Attaran's widely reported views sow mistrust between delegations from the developed and developing worlds, thus undermining the efforts of us all to achieve a global convention on 12 persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including DDT.
Mr. Attaran says: "Not only is Environment Canada arguing in the Johannesburg treaty negotiations that DDT should be eliminated once and for all, it has also proposed that the treaty not include a financial aid mechanism to help poor countries finance the alternatives. Canada is alone among wealthy countries in advocating this parsimony. Such policies literally kill."
The government of Canada has pressed for a global POPs convention as have Northern indigenous peoples who have attended all five international negotiating sessions over the last two years. Many POPs used in tropical and temperate countries end up in the Arctic, contaminating the food web and subsequently Inuit and other indigenous peoples who eat traditional food.
When used to control malaria, DDT saves the lives of thousands of people every year. While phasing out the use of DDT is an objective of the international negotiations, nobody supports a ban that puts lives at risk. When this issue surfaced in negotiations in 1999, Canadian indigenous peoples said they would refuse to be party to an agreement that threatened the health of others, notwithstanding the threat of POPs to their own health.
The view of Northern indigenous peoples is also the fundamental position of all countries participating in the negotiations and all non-governmental organizations observing the debate. Any phase-out of DDT will be conditional upon the availability of cost-effective alternatives.
Mr. Attaran's contention that Canada refuses to help finance the convention including development of alternatives to DDT is demonstrably untrue. The Minister of Finance announced $20-million in his February budget for exactly this purpose. Canada was the first nation to provide such support and is effectively advocating additional financial and technical assistance to developing countries and "economies in transition" (the old Soviet bloc).
A global POPs convention will not be finalized and ratified unless both developing and developed countries conclude that it helps them. There is no alternative to a "win-win" convention, notwithstanding Dr. Attaran's view from Harvard University.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier, President
Inuit Circumpolar Conference (Canada),
Robert Charlie
Council for Yukon First Nations, and
John Crump, Executive Director
Canadian Arctic Resources Committee | 
