Nasreen Seria And Irene Louw
6 November 2002
Johannesburg — AFRICA's 500000 ton stockpile of environmentally damaging pesticides will come under the spotlight this week at an international workshop on pesticide management.
SA is hosting a subregional workshop, organised by the United Nations Environmental Programme and the World Health Organisation, to discuss the reduction and elimination of pesticides.
The input would be used in international conventions, such as Stockholm and Basle, aimed at eliminating the use of harmful pollutants.
SA's stockpile of obsolete pesticides is estimated at 3000 tons, which would cost $12m to be treated through incineration. However, the environmental affairs and tourism department said this could be an underestimation, since pesticides used in agriculture only had a shelf life of two years and farmers could be holding on to obsolete pesticides that could be hazardous to the environment.
Buti Mathebula, director of chemical and hazardous waste management at the environmental affairs and tourism department, said it would embark on an awareness campaign next year to encourage farmers to declare their stocks.
"We are working with the agriculture and health departments in this awareness programme to inform farmers about the need to declare their obsolete stocks. Unless we do that inventory, we do not know how much we have to clear," said Mathebula.
SA is also expected to defend its position on the continued use of the chemical DDT for the control of malaria.
Although SA is a signatory of the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants aimed at the elimination of 12 environmentally harmful pollutants it has an exemption to use DDT for malaria control.
Mathebula said DDT was used in Limpopo, Mpumalanga and parts of KwaZulu Natal as an "effective" measure to control mosquitoes in the absence of alternative measures.
Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Rejoice Mabudafhasi, said at the opening of the conference this week that local structures should be involved in projects aimed at eliminating the stockpile of pesticides.
"It builds an element of accountability and trust. The (Africa stockpile programme) is an important project for Africa that might be elevated into a Nepad programme," said Mabudafhasi.
However, the parliamentary portfolio committee on environmental affairs and tourism was left in the dark about this week's workshop, despite the deputy minister's presence there on Monday.
The chairwoman of the environmental affairs and tourism portfolio committee, Gwendoline Mahlangu-Nkabinde, said yesterday the committee would approach the department for an "explanation" as to why it was not informed about the convention.
Citing it as an "important" event, she said issues critical to SA environmental issues being discussed at the convention also required attendance by members of the committee.
The next meeting on the Basle convention takes place in December in Geneva. The Basle convention deals with cross-boundary movement of hazardous waste.
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