Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: Organophosphates, Pesticides | Date: Jul 18 2008 | By: Martin

Hi. I recently got the opportunity to get an introductory overview of the situation of pesticides in Kenya using the case example of Nairobi City. Communicating to a specialist and key figure at Consumer Watch Kenya, a leading organization in Kenya that fights for better quality and safety of products and services for Kenyan consumers, I got to confirm our fear as conservationists that all is amiss as far as pesticide use, distribution and legislation is concerned. The specialist gave a sorry impression, based on the findings of their organization and agreed with me that indeed it was time, to use her words, ‘we joined dots(medicine, wildlife, agriculture, and others)’ to confront and deal with the situation.

Basically, the scenario witnessed is unauthorized pesticides, including those banned or severely restricted in developed countries being found in Kenya. In addition, these together with others are found to occur at high levels that deem them toxic to man. This information is in a report by Kenya Organic Agricultural Network and can be found on Consumer Watch Kenya’s website at www.consumerwatchkenya.org .Disturbing issues from the report include:

• There are only 16 banned/restricted pesticides in Kenya currently, despite the fact that Kenya is a signatory to major conventions and protocols that deal with Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) e.g. Rotterdam Convention, Montreal Protocol, Stockholm Convention among others.

• Of the 85,000 synthetic chemicals available worldwide, many are carcinogenic and damage the brain, the nervous and reproductive system. Many of these may leave residues in or on crops and on environment with potential exposure to human beings (and if I may add to wildlife and therefore the entire biodiversity is at risk).

• Following random selection of purchase sites for vegetables in Nairobi city, the test results on the purchased vegetables were shocking in 10 out of the 15 pesticides detected, exhibiting higher levels than those reflected by EU as healthy for the consumption. These include 2 banned organophosphates (Parathion and methyl parathion).

It follows without doubt that man and animal as well as environment at large face heavy toxicity confrontation from pesticides. It is only cooperative responsibility that can sort us out of this mess.

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Tags: conservationists, Consumer Watch Kenya, persistent organic pollutants, pesticide

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