By Kimberly Ramkhalawan
May 5, 2023
There is a current lobby for the Basel Convention Regional Center for the Caribbean, which is located in Trinidad and Tobago, to also become a Stockholm Convention Regional Centre (SCRC), and its all happening as the 2023 meetings of the conferences of the Parties for the implementation of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions, ongoing in Geneva, Switzerland. at this time.
But what is the Basel Convention Regional Centre-Caribbean? The BCRC is actually assigned with assisting Caribbean countries in implementing their international obligations to the Basel, Rotterdam, Stockholm and Minamata Conventions and other multilateral environmental treaties to sustainably manage wastes and chemicals for the protection of human health and the environment.
Trinidad and Tobago, as the host country for the regional Centre, took the floor to encourage the COP to endorse the decision for the BCRC-Caribbean to become a joint BCRC/SCRC for the Caribbean. However, there is need they say for more technical assistance with respect to regional centres.
BCRC-Caribbean Director, Jewel Batchasingh says at the moment, their office serves 15 countries, and while she thanked the government of Trinidad and Tobago for its commitment to host and support the center, she notes that as a result of this, it has leveraged financial support to the tune of $23M to continue the implementation of all conventions in the Caribbean. Batchansingh says this will enable them to continue “building the capacity to enable them to effectively fulfill their roles”, and “their support, will aid in getting the regional centre recognized globally as a centre of excellence in waste and chemical management”. In her efforts to lobby the center’s decision makers, she highlighted their unwavering support and collaboration to exchange lessons learnt and enhance technical capacity in the region.
It was following this intervention, several other Parties also echoed their support for the decision including Antigua, Belize, Chile, St.Lucia, St.Kitts and Nevis and Suriname as well as the European Union and the GRULAC Region.
The Caribbean centre plays a pivotal role in this year’s conference, with the unveiling of a PCBs Fair, highlighting the dangers of Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and with the BCRC-Caribbean’s booth themed POPsville. On hand for the ribbon cutting was Trinbagonian, Keima Gardiner who holds the post as President of the Bureau of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations’ (UN’s) Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).
Part of the showcase includes a campaign called, ‘Stop the POPs’, developed by the BCRC Caribbean that is animated which aims to simplify these often-perceived complicated chemicals, and how they are found in everyday use and are harmful to human health and the environment.
Over the last two years, the Caribbean arm of the centre has produced a short cartoon series with characters identifiable to those found in communities, and the latest installment features its familiar characters, Martin and Keisha along with Grandpa Keith in solving as PCB (Polychlorinated biphenyls) dilemma, a chemical found in transformer oil.
The Stockholm Convention is an international environmental treaty, signed on May 22nd, 2001 in Stockholm and effective from May 2004, that aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants, better known as POPs. These are a group of man-made chemical substances that remain chemically intact for extensive periods, are highly mobile, concentrate in the fatty tissue and pose a risk of causing adverse effects to human health and the environment.
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) is one of the original twelve POPs covered by the Stockholm Convention, with the 12 often referred to “the dirty dozen”, which is said to include highly persistent and toxic chemicals such as aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzen, mirex, polychlorinated biphenyls, polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, polychlorinated dibenzofurans, and toxaphen. As of June 2022, there are now 31 POPs listed. There are currently 185 Parties to the Convention, including Trinidad and Tobago which became a Party in 2002.
The Caribbean center’s involvement in this year’s conference also included the hosting of a side event entitled “Targeting PCBs Management in the Caribbean”.
Representatives from the Caribbean shared their national experiences on the development of PCB inventories and their approach to stakeholder engagement, mechanisms via which their analytical capacity has been improved to better detect and monitor POPs, and successes and challenges in the national rollout of awareness campaigns on POPs.
Much of the work done at the BCRC-Caribbean is said to be governed by the GEF 5558 project entitled The Development and Implementation of a Sustainable Management Mechanism for Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in the Caribbean. Through this, a Training Manual on the Environmentally Sound Management and Disposal of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) was developed based on findings in the region and aims to build capacity within the respective countries to store, handle and dispose of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in an environmentally sound manner using the Best Available Technologies (BAT) and Best Environmental Practices (BEP).