 Logo of PAN International | |
| Formation | May 1982 |
|---|---|
| Founded at | Penang, Malaysia |
| Type | International NGO, Nonprofit |
| Purpose | Pesticide regulation |
| Locations | |
Key people | Anwar Fazal |
| Website | https://pan-international.org |
Pesticide Action Network (PAN) is an international coalition of more than 600 NGOs in 90 countries which advocates for less hazardous alternatives to pesticides. [1] It was founded in May 1982 with its first meeting in Penang, Malaysia. [2] [3]
The origins of PAN have been linked to the start of the "global anti-toxics movement". [4] [5] In 1981 journalist David Weir of The Center for Investigative Reporting, published the book The Circle of Poison focusing on pesticides, followed a year later by A Growing Problem: Pesticides and the Third World Poor by David Bull of Oxfam. In 1982, Anwar Fazal, a Malaysian activist who at the time was the first person from a developing country to head the International Organization of Consumers Unions (IOCU; later known as Consumers International), organized a meeting in Penang, Malaysia to explore the possibility of an international network of activists focusing on pesticide regulation. [2] The meeting included Weir and Bull, that represented their respective organisations, as part of 14 participants from consumer and environmental organisations in developed nations, as well as 25 participants from developing nations. [4] It was hosted by the IOCU and the Friends of the Earth, Malaysia. [2] They decided to call "for a halt to the indiscriminate sale and misuse of hazardous chemical pesticides throughout the world" [2] and proposed a model that would be based on an international communication network with regional nodes. [4] By the mid-1990s, PAN operated as a decrentalised regional network with offices covering Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America. [6]
Within two years of its founding, PAN organised several international meetings and engaged in negotiations with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization on the development of the International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides that was approved in 1985. [7]
PAN lobbied international institutions to regulate pesticide trade by drawing on the concept of "prior informed consent". [8] PAN led a civil society campaign that gained the support of the chemical industry in the early 1990s, after their initial opposition. [9] This concept, was adopted by the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. [10] Prior to the Rotterdam Convention’s entry into force, an interim Chemical Review Committee was established and the Pesticide Action Network coalition participated as representatives of non-governmental organizations, alongside representatives from intergovernmental organizations (such as the World Health Organization) and several industry associations. [11]
PAN has lobbied for the regulation of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). On 5 June 1985 it launched the international “Dirty Dozen” campaign, with actions that included protests at plants manufacturing chemicals on the list such as the Dow plant in New Zealand that produced the herbicide 2,4,5-T. [7] In 1987, it called for the insecticide chlordimeform to be removed from the US market due to being a potential human carcinogen. [12] [13] Starting in 1995, PAN participated with other NGOs to the intergovernmental forums on persistent organic pollutants. [14] [15] This activity culminated with the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants signed in 2001. [16] [17] To follow PANs activity on POPs, it spun off a new organisation known as the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN). [7] IPEN became one of the most prominent nongovernmental organisations in negotiations over the Stockholm Convention. [7] During the late 1990s, PAN was involved in efforts to reduce the use of methyl bromide which caused ozone depletion. [18]
In 2000, Genetically Engineered Food Alert was launched by multiple organizations, including Pesticide Action Network North America, to lobby the FDA, Congress and companies to ban or stop using GMOs. [19] On 18 September 2000, Genetically Engineered Food Alert announced it had identified StarLink, a GMO not approved for human consumption, in some Taco Bell-branded taco shells, leading to the StarLink corn recall. [20]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
Pesticides are substances that are used to control pests. They include herbicides, insecticides, nematicides, fungicides, and many others. The most common of these are herbicides, which account for approximately 50% of all pesticide use globally. Most pesticides are used as plant protection products, which in general protect plants from weeds, fungi, or insects. In general, a pesticide is a chemical or biological agent that deters, incapacitates, kills, or otherwise discourages pests. Target pests can include insects, plant pathogens, weeds, molluscs, birds, mammals, fish, nematodes (roundworms), and microbes that destroy property, cause nuisance, or spread disease, or are disease vectors. Along with these benefits, pesticides also have drawbacks, such as potential toxicity to humans and other species.
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a multilateral environmental fund that provides grants and blended finance for projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), mercury, sustainable forest management, food security, and sustainable cities in developing countries and countries with economies in transition. It is the largest source of multilateral funding for biodiversity globally and distributes more than $1 billion a year on average to address inter-related environmental challenges.
Lindane, also known as gamma-hexachlorocyclohexane (γ-HCH), gammaxene, Gammallin and benzene hexachloride (BHC), is an organochlorine chemical and an isomer of hexachlorocyclohexane that has been used both as an agricultural insecticide and as a pharmaceutical treatment for lice and scabies.
Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is an international environmental treaty, signed on 22 May 2001 in Stockholm and effective from 17 May 2004, that aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are organic compounds that are resistant to degradation through chemical, biological, and photolytic processes. They are toxic and adversely affect human health and the environment around the world. Because they can be transported by wind and water, most POPs generated in one country can and do affect people and wildlife far from where they are used and released.
The International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN) is a global network of NGOs dedicated to the common aim of eliminating pollutants, such as lead in paint, mercury and lead in the environment, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), endocrine disrupting chemicals, and other toxics.
Dieldrin is an organochlorine compound originally produced in 1948 by J. Hyman & Co, Denver, as an insecticide. Dieldrin is closely related to aldrin, which reacts further to form dieldrin. Aldrin is not toxic to insects; it is oxidized in the insect to form dieldrin which is the active compound. Both dieldrin and aldrin are named after the Diels-Alder reaction which is used to form aldrin from a mixture of norbornadiene and hexachlorocyclopentadiene.
Endosulfan is an off-patent organochlorine insecticide and acaricide that is being phased out globally. It became a highly controversial agrichemical due to its acute toxicity, potential for bioaccumulation, and role as an endocrine disruptor. Because of its threats to human health and the environment, a global ban on the manufacture and use of endosulfan was negotiated under the Stockholm Convention in April 2011. The ban took effect in mid-2012, with certain uses exempted for five additional years. More than 80 countries, including the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, several West African nations, the United States, Brazil, and Canada had already banned it or announced phase-outs by the time the Stockholm Convention ban was agreed upon. It is still used extensively in India and China despite laws against its use. It is also used in a few other countries. It is produced by the Israeli firm Makhteshim Agan and several manufacturers in India and China. On May 13, 2011, the India Supreme Court ordered a ban on the production and sale of endosulfan in India, pending further notice.
Endrin is an organochlorine compound with the chemical formula C12H8Cl6O that was first produced in 1950 by Shell and Velsicol Chemical Corporation. It was primarily used as an insecticide, as well as a rodenticide and piscicide. It is a colourless, odorless solid, although commercial samples are often off-white. Endrin was manufactured as an emulsifiable solution known commercially as Endrex. The compound became infamous as a persistent organic pollutant and for this reason it is banned in many countries.
Mirex is an organochloride that was commercialized as an insecticide and later banned because of its impact on the environment. This white crystalline odorless solid is a derivative of cyclopentadiene. It was popularized to control fire ants but by virtue of its chemical robustness and lipophilicity it was recognized as a bioaccumulative pollutant. The spread of the red imported fire ant was encouraged by the use of mirex, which also kills native ants that are highly competitive with the fire ants. The United States Environmental Protection Agency prohibited its use in 1976. It is prohibited by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
Methoxychlor is a synthetic organochloride insecticide, now obsolete. Tradenames for methoxychlor include Chemform, Maralate, Methoxo, Methoxcide, Metox, and Moxie.
The Rotterdam Convention is a multilateral treaty to promote shared responsibilities in relation to importation of hazardous chemicals. The convention promotes open exchange of information and calls on exporters of hazardous chemicals to use proper labeling, include directions on safe handling, and inform purchasers of any known restrictions or bans. Signatory nations can decide whether to allow or ban the importation of chemicals listed in the treaty, and exporting countries are obliged to make sure that producers within their jurisdiction comply.
Global distillation or the grasshopper effect is the geochemical process by which certain chemicals, most notably persistent organic pollutants (POPs), are transported from warmer to colder regions of the Earth, particularly the poles and mountain tops. Global distillation explains why relatively high concentrations of POPs have been found in the Arctic environment and in the bodies of animals and people who live there, even though most of the chemicals have not been used in the region in appreciable amounts.
The regulation of chemicals is the legislative intent of a variety of national laws or international initiatives such as agreements, strategies or conventions. These international initiatives define the policy of further regulations to be implemented locally as well as exposure or emission limits. Often, regulatory agencies oversee the enforcement of these laws.
Olga Speranskaya is a Russian scientist and environmentalist. She has been the Director of the Chemical Safety Program at the Eco-Accord Center for Environment and Sustainable Development in Moscow since 1997 and holds a master's degree in Geophysics from Moscow State University, and a doctorate in Environmental physics from the Russian Academy of Sciences. From 2010 to 2018, she was a co-chair of the International POPs Elimination Network. Speranskaya has led many campaigns against the use of organic pollutants, fought to ban the burial and transport of hazardous chemicals, and provided information to government decision-makers for policy changes in many different countries.
The Aarhus Protocol on Persistent Organic Pollutants, a 1998 protocol on persistent organic pollutants (POPs), is an addition to the 1979 Geneva Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP). The Protocol seeks "to control, reduce or eliminate discharge, emissions and losses of persistent organic pollutants" in Europe, some former Soviet Union countries, and the United States, in order to reduce their transboundary fluxes so as to protect human health and the environment from adverse effects.
Pentachlorobenzene (PeCB) is an aryl chloride and a five-substituted chlorobenzene with the molecular formula C6HCl5 which is a chlorinated aromatic hydrocarbon. It consists of a benzene ring substituted with five chlorine atoms. PeCB was once used industrially for a variety of uses, but because of environmental concerns there are currently no large scale uses of PeCB. Pentachlorobenzene is a known persistent organic pollutant (POP) and banned globally by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2009.
Safe Planet: the United Nations Campaign for Responsibility on Hazardous Chemicals and Wastes is the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and UN Food and Agricultural Organization-led global public awareness and outreach campaign for ensuring the safety of human health and the environment against hazardous chemicals and wastes.
The Global Monitoring Plan (GMP) under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is a programme that enables collection of comparable monitoring data from all regions of the world to assess the effectiveness of the Stockholm Convention in minimizing human and environmental exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs). To know whether the levels of POPs are increasing or decreasing over time, information on environmental and human exposure levels of these chemicals should enable detection of trends. GMP looks at background levels of POPs at locations not influenced by local sources, such as ‘hot spots’. For human sampling, the focus is on the general population rather than on individuals who may have suffered high exposure to POPs.
