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Pacific Islands Region Supporting the Global Monitoring Plan on Persistent Organic Pollutants in Pacific Islands Region PACIFIC ISLANDS REGION REGIONAL REPORT Project GFL 4A37 Pacific GMP Report i Supporting the Implementation of the GMP in the Pacific Islands Region Table of Content Page Table of Content.......................................................................................................................... i Table of Tables........................................................................................................................... ii Table of Figures.......................................................................................................................... ii List of Acronyms and Abbreviations ........................................................................................iii 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 General .....................................................................................................................1 1.2 Objectives of the Project .......................................................................................... 1 1.3 Expected results or outputs....................................................................................... 2 2 Institutional Arrangements................................................................................................ 3 3 Regional Activities by Regional Coordinator ................................................................... 5 3.1 Regional Inception Workshop.................................................................................. 5 3.2 Regional Final Workshop......................................................................................... 6 4 International Intercalibration Study................................................................................... 7 5 Results and Achievements................................................................................................. 7 5.1 Capacity building: Generation of sampling capacity for supporting the GMP........ 7 5.1.1 Mothers’ milk.............................................................................................. 7 5.1.2 Ambient air (PAS)....................................................................................... 7 5.2 New data/results....................................................................................................... 8 6 Conclusions and Recommendations.................................................................................. 9 6.1 Technical conclusions.............................................................................................. 9 6.1.1 Analytical capacity...................................................................................... 9 6.2 Political implications................................................................................................ 9 6.3 Recommendations .................................................................................................... 9 7 References ....................................................................................................................... 10 8 National Reports by Participating Country ..................................................................... 11 8.1 Mothers’ Milk Sampling ........................................................................................ 11 8.1.1 Methodology ............................................................................................. 11 8.1.2 Sampling methodology............................................................................. 11 8.1.3 Analytical methodology ............................................................................ 11 8.2 Passive Air Sampling ............................................................................................. 12 8.2.1 Set-up ........................................................................................................ 12 8.2.2 Methodology ............................................................................................. 12 8.2.3 Analytical methodology ............................................................................ 13 8.3 National Samples.................................................................................................... 13 8.3.1 Set-up ........................................................................................................ 13 8.3.2 Description of selection of samples .......................................................... 13 8.3.3 Analytical methodology ............................................................................ 13 8.4 POPs Laboratory.................................................................................................... 14 March 2012 ii Pacific GMP Report 8.4.1 Characteristics of the Laboratory.............................................................. 14 8.4.2 Training, Consumables, Analyses, Matrices............................................. 14 8.5 Results and Discussion........................................................................................... 14 8.5.1 Intercalibration and Mirror Results........................................................... 14 8.5.2 Ambient Air.............................................................................................. 14 8.5.3 Mothers’ Milk........................................................................................... 15 8.6 Conclusions and Recommendations....................................................................... 15 8.6.1 Human milk POPs results ......................................................................... 15 8.6.2 Ambient air POPs results .......................................................................... 16 9 Reports by Expert Back-up Laboratories ........................................................................ 17 9.1 Training of Basic POPs Laboratories..................................................................... 17 10 Mothers’ Milk Data......................................................................................................... 17 11 Air Data........................................................................................................................... 17 Table of Tables Table 1: Summary for human milk samples from individual Pacific Island Countries.... 14 Table 2: Summary for PUF Air Samples from Pacific Island Countries.......................... 15 Table 3: Key findings for ambient air results presented were (expressed in ng/PUF) ..... 18 Table 4: Key findings for human milk results were (expressed in ng/g wet weight) ....... 19 Table of Figures Figure 1: Donor mother from Kiribati and the use of breast pumps during the project....... 7 Figure 2: Passive air samplers (PAS) at Solomon Islands site............................................. 8 Figure 3: Basic POPs across PICs for human milk from first time mothers...................... 16 Figure 4: Basic POPs across PICs for ambient air using Passive Air Samplers (PAS) ..... 16 March 2012 Pacific GMP Report iii List of Acronyms and Abbreviations BAT Best available techniques BEP Best environmental practices COP Conference of the Parties DOE Department of Environment DTIE Division of Technology, Industry and Economics ECD Environment and Conservation Division GMP Global Monitoring Program GEF Global Environment Facility IAS Institute of Applied Sciences IMR Report for the Inception Meeting IVM Institute for Environmental Studies MET Solomon Islands Meteorological Services MECDM Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology MNRE Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment MOH Ministry of Health MTM Orebro University NIP National Implementation Plan PICs Pacific Island Countries PIR Pacific Island Region POPs Persistent Organic Pollutants SPREP Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program USP University of the South Pacific UN United Nations UNEP United Nations Environment Program March 2012 iv Pacific GMP Report March 2012 Pacific GMP Report 1 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 General Article 16 of the Stockholm Convention requires the Conference of the Parties to evaluate the effectiveness of the Convention commencing four years after its data of entry into force and regularly thereafter. That evaluation is based on available scientific, environmental, technical and economic information, including monitoring reports on the levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the environment. To assist in that task, at its third meeting the Conference of the Parties adopted the global monitoring plan for POPs and the implementation plan for the first effectiveness evaluation (decision SC-3/19). The first evaluation was undertaken to obtain comparable data on air lev- els and human exposure (Breast milk and blood) from all five UN regions to serve as base- lines for future evaluations. It should be understood that the baseline in the current context was set to determine trends of increase or decrease in POPs levels in both the short and long term. The Pacific Islands Region is a sub-region of the Asia-Pacific region and one of the five UN regions (UNEP/POPS/COP.4/33” p.2) and was successful in its project proposal to the GEF Secretariat to support the Global Monitoring Plan and got the project entitled “Report for the Inception Meeting (IMR) of the Project: Supporting the POPs Global Monitoring Pro- gramme (GMP) in the Pacific Islands Region, PI/UNEP/GEF/IMR,
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