Success on endosulfan in China

May 31st 2011 For years, a heated debate has been underway about deadly pesticide endosulfan.

Citing the huge body of scientific and anecdotal evidence against it, EJF and others have consistently argued that endosulfan production and use needed to be banned globally in order to protect human health and the environment. Endosulfan exposure has been linked to severe congenital deformities, devastating interference with reproductive systems, renal failure and reduced immunity, and in the worst cases death.

More than 70 countries agreed with us, and implemented national restrictions on it. However, a small handful of countries and organizations with vested interests were fighting for its continued use.

In 2007, the EU made a proposal to list endosulfan under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). From there, momentum gained as the Convention’s Scientific Review Committee (POPRC) first announced its official recognition of endosulfan as a POP, and later made the recommendation for endosulfan production and use to be restricted by its listing under the Convention.

Then, in the last week of April this year, the country parties to the Stockholm Convention met in Geneva and reached an agreement to listed endosulfan under Annex A of the Stockholm Convention.

The listing of a substance under Annex A requires countries to take urgent steps to eliminate all production and use. Effectively these 170 or so countries had agreed to a global ban on endosulfan.

They claimed they needed use to continue in order to control pests of specific crops including cotton, coffee, onions, potatoes, chillies, apples, and mangoes. With these exemptions, use and production can continue for another 5 years with an extension of a further 6 years in order to phase-out use.

Last week, however, China has announced that endosulfan has been added to the list of 22 pesticides to be banned by the Ministry of Agriculture, and that its registrations are to be suspended by the end of the year.

One endosulfan producer, quoted on the Agropages website http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---4164.htm), told reporters “Many of us have reduced the production while expanding its alternatives, thus the phase out won’t impact us so much.”

China now joins India which is also considering an early phase out despite the exemptions it won at the meeting.

On May 13th 2011, India’s Supreme Court announced a temporary national ban on the manufacture, sale and use of deadly pesticide endosulfan. The Court said it was taking a precautionary approach and could not support continued endosulfan manufacture and use if there was any risk to the health and lives of its people.

The Court has asked an expert committee to assess the toxicity of endosulfan, reporting its findings next month, meanwhile putting a country-wide ban in place in the interim which could then become a permanent ban.