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Campaign for national ban on Endosulfan

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Various environmental groups and activist groups are spearheading a campaign for a total ban on the production and marketing of Endosulfan in India.

Their efforts have got a boost with the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants considering a proposal for inclusion of the pesticide in the annexe of the Convention, which will force nations to ban the chemical. An international scientific review committee ruled early this month that Endosulfan is highly toxic to humans and the wildlife and voted to prepare a risk management evaluation, the first step towards proscribing the pesticide.

India, the largest producer of the pesticide in the world, was the only country to oppose the move though the chemical has been implicated in the death of at least 500 people in Kasaragod district. Hundreds of people in 15 grama panchayats in the district, where the State-owned Plantation Corporation of Kerala had aerial-sprayed large quantities of the pesticide for about 25 years, developed various abnormalities and illnesses.

The Environmental Justice Foundation, one of the organisations campaigning for a ban on Endosulfan in India, said that M. Night Shayamalan, Deepa Mehta, Ravi Shankar, Zerbanoo Gifford, Anita Nair and others had extended their support to the campaign.

An anti-Endosulfan council (Endosulfan Virudha Samithi) in Kasaragod is planning to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Union Minister for Agriculture Sharad Pawar in December to press for a ban on the production of the chemical in the country.

Narayanan Periya, chairman of the council, said the council would start the third round of its campaign seeking a ban on harmful pesticides and compensation to the victims. Though Endosulfan is now banned in Kerala and Karnataka, the chemical is being sold in Palakkad district and other places in the State. The pesticide is already banned in 76 countries.

K.B. Mohammed Kunji, president of the Punchiri Arts and Sports Club (Bovikanam), which is in the forefront of the campaign, said the tragedy in Kasaragod district should be viewed as a national disaster. A remedial package for the victims should be implemented without further delay.

C. Jayakumar of Thanal, a public interest research, advocacy, education and action trust based in Thiruvananthapuram, noted that India was opposing any action on Endosulfan at the Stockholm and Rotterdam Convention because of the influence of the pesticide lobby. (Mr. Jayakumar has been attending the Stockholm Convention meetings for the past nine years as an accredited observer. Thanal also has observer status at the Rotterdam Convention which lays down prior informed consent procedure for hazardous chemicals and pesticides in international trade.)

Various official studies on the link between the deaths and diseases in Endosulfan-sprayed areas of Kasargod district and Endosulfan appear ambivalent in their findings, allegedly because of pressure from the pesticide lobby and some officials who could be implicated in the tragedy. However, the proposal before the Stockholm Convention notes that excessive and improper application and handling of Endosulfan have been linked to congenital physical disorders, mental retardations and deaths among farm workers and villagers in developing countries in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. It is a very toxic chemical for nearly all kind of organisms. Recent literature has indicated the potential of Endosulfan to cause some endocrine disruption in both terrestrial and aquatic species.

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