Delegates from several Pacific nations have been negotiating a global treaty to reduce or eliminate mercury from their food sources.
At a meeting in Sweden last week, the Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati and Tuvalu heard about the health problems mercury found in fish can cause.
Imogen Ingram from the Island Sustainability Alliance Cook Islands, who's now at a Sustainable Oceans Summit in Northern Ireland gave the speech.saying that there are two main sources of mercury, One of them is the emissions from coal fired power stations, which go into the air and then get into the waterways and sea. Another major source is tooth amalgam, dental amalgam. But the ones most concerning are the organic forms which impact in the fish that we eat.
The University of South Pacific tested tuna directly from countries like Kiribati, Tuvalu, Samoa and Niue. As an awareness raising exercise, participants from the International Pop's Elimination Network and Zero Mercury, joined the government delegates to get hair samples. Forty participants took part and of those tested, a third had a limit over the US reference dose of a thousand units.
This raises the concern for embryos and new born babies where, as they're exposed to mother's milk containing mercury, they will suffer permanent irreversible brain damage.
Ingram said that, when the results of the hair samplings were presented, of that third that were over the limit, 80 per cent were from developing countries and countries in transition there was a round of applause from the plenary, because it brought home to them that this is a human health problem.
A Japanese delegate at the meeting did a very moving show about Minamata disease, which the Japanese people suffered during the rapid industralisation in the 1950s. There was a lot of run-off into Minamata Bay, and horrific photographs of people with severe deformities and severe disabilities. As adults these people had become just cabbages. Of course there are other instances where the disability is not quite so obvious, but also damaging.
Ingram who is now working in Belfast with the Sustainable Oceans Summit. says it is interesting meeting with people from industry, such as the gas and oil industries, academics and a few NGOs. Her primary concern was about GB Minerals. These people were pleasantly surprised that they had common ground with other people they didn't think they had common ground with.
Papua New Guinea has signed up with a company called Nautilus to explore seabed mineral legislation, and the meeting was asked about what would happen in the event of a disastrous accident similar to what's going on in the Gulf at present. Obviously if you are working 15-hundred metres below the surface the sea, there's room for accident.
The minerals are not under pressure like oil is, but even dredging or scooping up minerals will aid the dispersion of chemicals, especially on the sea floor, and of course disruption to fishing stocks and the general way of life.
The short answer regarding the liability of the company in the event of a disastrous accident was, all care taken but no responsibility.
Ingram wonders why the mining companies were pursuing so vigorously deep sea mining in the Pacific, when they could very well mine minerals much easier to access on land in their own countries.
She came to the conclusion from the presentation, that because of imbalance in the capacity and legislators institutions for oversight, the companies see that as a very quick and easy way to get into the mining without the difficulties they would have getting consent from their own countries. .
The disaster that’s happening in Mexico right now did not directly come up at the meeting. However, in the wrap up session people did comment on the fact that here was this major event going on in the Gulf, and people were not really speaking about it. And so some of the extraction industry representatives speak, saying that it was BP that was unlucky this time, the next time it might be another company, so you can't sort of get too high and mighty about it.
Non government organisations had a rather different view and academia also had a different view than the industry representatives with regard to the ‘all care but no responsibility’ attitude said Ingram.
“We think it's important to have the dialogue, how can you change people's mindset unless you communicate with them?” she said.
KG06