BASEL CONVENTION ON HAZARDOUS WASTES, UN REGIONAL SEAS PROGRAMME

 

TO FIGHT COASTAL POLLUTION TOGETHER

 

(Reissued as received.)

NAIROBI/GENEVA, 1 March (UNEP) -- The Secretariat of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal and the Regional Seas Programme of the United Nations Environment programme (UNEP) have joined forces in the fight against coastal pollution with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in Nairobi last week.

The main area of cooperation is the environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes in order to prevent coastal and marine pollution.  Marine litter is targeted through the environmental management of plastic waste, used lead-acid batteries and used oils and lubricants.  The two programmes organisations will raise awareness on hazardous waste and marine pollution, and support each other with technical and legal training.

The Basel Convention is the world’s most comprehensive environmental agreement on hazardous and other wastes.  It has over 160 parties and aims to protect human health and the environment from the inappropriate management of hazardous and other wastes.  The Convention regulates the movement of hazardous waste and obliges its members to ensure that such wastes are managed and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner.  It covers toxic, poisonous, explosive, corrosive, flammable, ecotoxic, and infectious wastes that are being moved from one country to another.  Governments are also expected to minimize the quantities that are transported, to treat and dispose of wastes as close as possible to their place of generation and to minimize the generation of hazardous waste at source.

Many of the joint activities will be carried out using the 13 Basel Convention Regional Centres (BCRCs) as platforms for regional cooperation with the various Regional Seas Programmes.  The 13 BCRCs are located in Argentina, China, Egypt, El Salvador, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russian Federation, Senegal, Slovakia, the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (Samoa), South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay.

The Basel Convention Secretariat and the Regional Seas Programme will also work together on the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (known as the "Barbados Programme of Action").

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) generally suffer from a lack of trained personnel to handle the environmentally sound management of hazardous waste, as well as from high transportation costs and a shortage of available land.  Because the management of solid waste is generally a first priority, hazardous wastes management can receive fewer resources.

The UNEP Regional Seas Programme is an alliance amongst the various Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans (RSCAP).  Its objective is the protection of the coastal and marine environment, having concern not only for the consequences but also for the causes of environmental degradation and encompassing a comprehensive approach to combating environmental problems through the management of marine and coastal areas.  Of the 13 regions covered by the Programme, each benefits from an action plan formulated according to the needs of the region, as perceived by the governments concerned.  The regions are the Black Sea, Caribbean, East Asian Seas, Eastern Africa, Kuwait, Mediterranean, North-West Pacific, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, South Asian seas, South-East Pacific, South Pacific, South-West Atlantic, West and Central Africa.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Mrs. Veerle Vandeweerd, Deputy Director of UNEP’s Division of Environmental Policy Implementation and Head of the Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-Based Activities, and by Mrs. Sachiko Kuwabara-Yamamoto, Executive Secretary of the Basel Convention Secretariat.

Note to journalists:  for additional information, please contact Nicole Dawe, Secretariat of the Basel Convention, tel.:  +41 22 917 82 20; e-mail:  Nicole.Dawe@unep.ch; or Michael Williams, United Nations Environment Programme, tel.:  +41 22 917 82 42, mobile:  +41 79 40 91 528 (cell) e-mail:  Michael.Williams@unep.ch.

Or visit the Basel Convention web site at www.basel.int; or the Regional Seas Programme website at www.unep.ch/regionalseas.

* *** *