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Endangered Seas Campaign

Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals


Plan for the Elimination of Marine Pollution Approved in Tunis

WWF appeals to all the states of the Mediterranean Basin to immediately ratify this decision

November 21st, 1997

During the 10th meeting of the Barcelona Convention in Tunis, after long consultations and two years of technical/political meetings, the parties approved the 1st Strategic Plan for the progressive elimination of Land Based Source Pollution (LBS).

2025 has been set as the deadline for the control and elimination of most pollutants. However, by year 2005 all the chemical substances with the following characteristics will have to be eliminated: persistence in the environment, toxicity and bio-accumulation

These chemical agents include the notorious 12 Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP), aka the "Dirty Dozen" due to their capacity to induce cancerogenous, teratogenous, immunodepressant and endocrine disruption processes in both animals and human beings.

Today in Tunis the date for source reduction, selective collection, recycling, composting and sustainable disposal of all urban solid waste of cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants was fixed at 2005.

The document, approved by Mediterranean countries also contains a list of 119 "hot spots", that is to say those areas within the Mediterranean basin where high release of pollutants has been verified. The paper also include an estimate of the investments needed for the above areas' reclamation, which, according to UNEP/MAP (1997) amount to around 5.7 billions USD.

Furthermore, today the parties of the Barcelona Convention made an official racommendation to support the establishment of an International Protected Area for cetaceans in the corso-liguro-provencal basin, also called Cetacean Sanctuary.

"We are finally on the right path to pass from word to facts...." declared Paolo Guglielmi, Marine Officer of WWF's Mediterranean Programme Office, "but all these long-due decisions on our sea, risk to remain on paper. If the Governments of the 20 Mediterranean countries do not soon ratify the protocol containing this plan, incorporating the measures in national legislation, all the work of the Barcelona Convention will have been useless. This is why, here in Tunis, we have launched an appeal to all Mediterranean Governments for the ratification of the LBS protocol no later than 1998, also considering the UN call for 1998 as Year of the Oceans."

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For further information, please contact:
Alessandra Poggiani
Communications Officer
WWF Mediterranean Programme Office
tel: 39-6-844 97 424
fax: 39-6-841 3866
E-mail: Ale.Poggiani@mclink.it