The Endosulfan Manufactures and Formulators Welfare Association (EMFWA) have challenged the Karnataka ban on endosulfan in the Karnataka High Court. They pesticide manufacturers have said that the ban was 'unscientific' as there are no studies done in the state to prove that endosulfan was the cause of the health conditions of the people in the affected villages.
1. The recent ban on endosulfan in US
United Nations chemical experts have recommended endosulfan to be included in the Rotterdam Convention’s Prior Informed Consent procedure.
As the demand for a ban on Endosulfan in India is gaining pitch and Karnataka being the latest state to ban the pesticide, the Pesticide Manufacturers and Formulators Association of India (PMFAI) is going around crying foul. They are leaving no stone unturned to save endosulfan. Press meets across the country and plugged newspaper reports maligning studies that have indicted endosulfan in the past is a desperate attempt to save a US $100 million endosulfan industry.
As the fifth Conference of Parties (COP) of Stockholm Convention gear up to meet at Geneva in the last week of April and decide the fate of endosulfan, the Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is busy rooting for the pesticide.
India joins the World Pawar on Endosulfan Endosulfan Added to Trade "Watch List".- April 1, 2011 Chronology of Events
Proposal to amend the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) was sent on 26th July' 2007 to the Executive Secretary of the Stockholm Convention. In this the European Commission on behalf of the European Community proposed to amend the convention with inclusion of endosulfan as one of the POPs under annexes A, B and C . It was requested that the proposal be forwarded to the Third meeting of POP Review Committee (POPRC) taking place on November'07.
The fifth Conference of Parties (COP) of Stockholm Convention meets on April 25 in Geneva to decide the fate of endosulfan. The Conference of Parties will consider the recommendation of Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee (POPRC) of the Stockholm Convention to enlist Endosulfan and its isomers in Annex A to the Convention, with specific exemption.
The five day plenary session of the Stockholm convention began in Geneva today. The new chair for the COP meeting, from the Czech Republic, has been selected. The main meeting on endosulfan will begin on Tuesday. On day one India distributed its statement at the regional (Asia Pacific) meeting. It still claims that Endosulfan is not a health hazard and that its recommendation in the Persistent Organic Pollutant Registration Committee-sixth meeting was based on selective data and contrary evidence from other studies including FAO and WHO.
In the ongoing plenary of COP5 of the Stockholm Convention at Geneva, India was in for a bit of a shock on day two. India's efforts to present its statement as a joint statement of the Asia Pacific region failed miserably as a few countries wanted to delete the parts in the document referring to endosulfan. India had circulated a document on day one during the regional meetings stating that endosulfan wasn’t a health hazard and that the sixth POPRC’s recommendation of endosulfan in Annex A was a serious procedural violation.
As Day 3 of the COP-5 at the Stockholm Convention proceeded, there were discussions on the alternatives and exemptions of endosulfan in the contact group of the convention. On day 2, the POPRC chair introduced POPRC's recommendation to list endosulfan in Annex A with specific exemptions as was recommended by consensus of the POPRC members in October last year.
Day 4, April 28: Talks opened with a discussion on the continuation of DDT. DDT is currently listed under Annex B of the Stockholm Convention. Listing in Annex B means that the chemical/pesticide has to be phased out eventually; it is banned with certain exemptions and till such time that an alternative can be found. In India DDT is being used only as a vector disease control. India on its part reported that they were producing DDT under strict control and that the use of the chemical has come down to half from 10,000 metric ton in 1997 to 5,500 metric ton in 2010.
The fifth Conference of Parties (COP) of Stockholm Convention meets on April 25 in Geneva to decide the fate of endosulfan. The Conference of Parties will consider the recommendation of Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee (POPRC) of the Stockholm Convention to enlist Endosulfan and its isomers in Annex A to the Convention, with specific exemption.
The POPRC reviews proposals submitted by Parties for listing new chemicals in accordance with Article 8 of the Convention.
I thought I should let you know about the recent attacks against us by the pesticide industry. You will recall, we had way back in 2001 analyzed samples of soil, water and blood from Padre village in Kerala to check for contamination. We went there because local doctors and activists wrote about the horrific diseases and abnomalities in this region. We tested and found high levels of endosulfan pesticide.