Persistent Organic Pollutants (Pops)
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August 2000 UNEP Global POPs Treaty – INC5/Johannesburg Implementing Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Introduction many governments have taken action to restrict or eliminate use of highly toxic chemicals. Eight of the 12 chemicals targeted for elimination under the global POPs Treaty are pesticides1 used in Even where POPs pesticides have been banned, however, agriculture, disease control, and structural pest several factors contribute to their continued use and management.2 While these POPs pesticides have been accumulation. Many countries lack the regulatory banned in most industrialized and many developing apparatus necessary to evaluate pesticides and other toxic countries, they remain in use in many regions, legally chemicals. And many do not have the resources and and illegally. infrastructure needed to implement and enforce pesticide regulations and marketing procedures. In the global Fortunately, effective substitutes exist for virtually all marketplace, POPs pesticides can appear attractive to uses of POPs pesticides. These alternative methods fall governments strapped for foreign exchange because under the rubric of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), a frequently these chemicals are less expensive than newly systems approach to pest control that relies on an developed, lower-risk pesticides. Aggressive marketing understanding of pest ecology. IPM emphasizes working by agricultural chemical companies, as well as extensive with and enhancing naturally occurring pest management technical support to farmers, helps ensure the widespread mechanisms, using cultural, biological, and physical use of these products. techniques to keep pests below thresholds of economic harm. Where these methods do not provide adequate Some effects of reliance on toxic pesticides include: control, conventional pesticides are used as a last resort, • adverse health impacts from cancer to birth with preference for the least-toxic options. abnormalities to liver damage, as well as endocrine disrupting effects in humans and wildlife; WWF Recommends: • at least 20,000 unintentional deaths and three million 1. Countries should take all steps possible to phase out cases of severe acute poisoning each year according POPs pesticides and to transition toward IPM and to the World Health Organization (WHO); other ecologically sound pest management systems. • long term and often severe contamination of soil and 2. Resources should be made available to implement groundwater; and enforce bans and restrictions on POPs and other • reduction or elimination of populations of beneficial toxic pesticides. insects, wildlife, and soil microbes that provide a 3. Governments, donor organizations, and other natural check on pest populations; and institutions need to review and revise their existing • development of resistance by target pests to agricultural programs and policies with the goal of chemical pesticides, resulting in increasing supporting the accelerated adoption of farmer- applications of pesticides with diminishing effects – oriented IPM approaches to pest management. thus putting farmers on a “pesticide treadmill.” 4. Governments and other institutions should support applied research, field demonstrations, and grower Safe, Economically Viable Alternatives assistance to develop and demonstrate practical, effective, and economical models of non-chemical The toolbox of IPM approaches includes a wide range of agricultural production. effective, safe, and economical alternatives to the use of POPs pesticides. These include biologically based pest POPs Pesticides Remain a Threat control techniques such as pheromone traps and pest mating disruptors, augmentation of native beneficial While the use of pesticides has contributed to food and insects, and microbial formulations. Farmers move from fiber production and to public health protection over the dependence on chemicals toward biologically based IPM past 50 years, it has also caused significant harm to by becoming knowledgeable managers of pest ecology. wildlife, human health, and the environment. As a result, Scouting and the use of economically-efficient pest threshold levels replace routine spray schedules. The diverse array of available pest management options includes physical and cultural controls such as crop 1 DDT is used primarily in disease vector control for malaria and is discussed in a separate issue paper. Although hexachlorobenzene has rotation, use of pest resistant varieties, planting and been used as a fungicide, it is principally a by-product of pesticide harvesting schedules that avoid pest infestations, inter- manufacture and is not included in this list of eight pesticides. cropping, and water management practices. 2 This paper focuses on pest control in the agricultural sector. Use POPs Pesticides Selected Alternatives • Physical barriers and repellent plants such as lemon Crop Aldrin, chlordane, Fostered and grass have helped tropical farmers in Honduras and insecticides DDT, dieldrin, augmented beneficial Nicaragua protect trees and plant nurseries from leaf (food and endrin, insects and mites, fiber crops) heptachlor, rotations, mechanical cutter ants. toxaphene cultivation, use of • By adopting IPM methods and cutting pesticide disease resistant applications, Peruvian potato farmers have reduced varieties, etc. Andean potato weevil infestations, generating an Termite and Aldrin, chlordane, Natural repellents, estimated benefit of US$162 per hectare. ant control dieldrin, endrin, sanitation, physical • heptachlor, mirex barriers Rice farmers in Thailand work with FAO to Rodent Endrin Sanitation, food storage, effectively control field rats with a coordinated, control trapping, physical community-based program of mechanical control barriers methods such as filling and flooding burrows. Livestock Toxaphene Pasture rotation, breed ticks selection, vaccines Accelerating Adoption of IPM Increasingly, governments, bilateral donor organizations, While the advantages of IPM systems have been and other institutions are promoting IPM solutions to demonstrated around the world, significant obstacles reduce reliance on toxic pesticides. The FAO, World remain to their expanded use. In both industrialized and Bank, UN Development Program, and UN Environment developing countries, most growers have little or no Program established the Global IPM Facility in 1995 to information on the efficacy, quality, or economic support research and implementation of IPM systems. feasibility of non-chemical pest controls. An enormous The initiative has assisted the development of farmer- opportunity exists for governments, donors, and other centered IPM programs in West, East, and Southern institutions to work with farmers to adapt the many Africa. It is now expanding its reach to include the Near successful IPM methods to meet on-farm needs specific East, Central Asia, and Latin America. to local crops, pests, and environmental conditions. Experience with IPM implementation by the Global IPM Applied research, field demonstrations, and grower- Facility and others has shown that participatory assistance programs will be critical in the transition to approaches that work closely with farmers are the most more widespread adoption of IPM systems, as will effective means of achieving the twin goals of food farmer training and education programs. The benefits security and environmentally sustainable agriculture. will be great -- IPM solutions offer economical, safe, and Training farmers to understand the ecology of their fields effective alternatives to POPs and other toxic pesticides. and become IPM experts enables them to significantly reduce or eliminate the use of highly toxic pesticides while maintaining yields. The reduced expenditure on For more information, see WWF issue brief, pesticides improves farm income and contributes to Successful, Safe, and Sustainable Alternatives to household and national food security. Persistent Organic Pollutants, September 1999, available at: www.worlwildlife.org/toxics The following examples display the range of techniques that have been used throughout the world to successfully combat pests without the use of POPs pesticides: This issue brief was prepared in collaboration with • Cotton farmers in Peru’s Cañete Valley combat Pesticide Action Network North America. pesticide-resistant insects by reintroducing native beneficial insects and by using a short-season crop variety that matures before the late-season arrival of WWF Global Toxic Chemicals Initiative th pests. 1250 24 Street, NW • Farmers in Bangladesh, involved in the NOPEST Washington, DC 20037 project, eliminated pesticide use and achieved an Tel: 202-778-9625 11% increase in rice production by diversifying crop Fax: 202-530-0743 production and varieties and restoring the balance [email protected] between pests and natural predators. www.worldwildlife.org/toxics • Farmers in Western Kenya increased food production and enhanced soil fertility by using natural repellents made from a native shrub to combat termites. 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