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N e w s agendas currently under development by the MERCOSUR group of countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) and associated members Chile and Bolivia. For more information, contact: Rody Onate, Information Officer, UNEP Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Tel: +55 5202 4841, Fax: +55 5202 0950, E-mail: rody.onate @pnuma.org. ◆ UNEP-Tongji Institute offers new annual course In July, 36 participants from 25 Asian and Pacific countries – from Afghanistan to Palau – took part in a new leadership programme offered by the UNEP-Tongji Institute for Environment and Sustainable Development at Tongji University in Shanghai. The seven-day course, to be offered annually, will help develop Masters level courses at the Institute. As part of a teaching consortium created by the Institute, the leadership course is run by a faculty drawn from a dozen universities and educational bodies in the region. Most faculty members are members of the university consortium and provide their teaching input on a voluntary basis, as they expect to learn from one another’s approaches and the improvisations the course will demand. Participants, identified as having leadership potential, are drawn from government agencies, community and activist organizations, the private sector, educational bodies and UN agencies. Klaus Toepfer, UNEP’s Executive Director, says that “With China’s double-digit economic growth and the commitments in its current, Tenth Five- Year plan to address industrial pollution, cleaner production, sustainable urban development, environmental protection within agriculture, institutional strengthening and transboundary issues, the timing and setting for the first course is ideal.” Course architect and UNEP Regional Director Surendra Shrestha emphasizes that “the course has been designed for our future leaders, integrating different perspectives and expertise through a consortium of universities which share a common commitment to sustainability.” The President of Tongji University, Professor Wan Gang, thanked UNEP for the partnership: “This is another step in realizing our vision of hosting a top collaborative research, technical and managerial training facility for the developing countries of this region; one which contributes significantly to UNEP’s global and regional environmental assessments as well as to the environmental dimensions of China’s major development projects.” In addition to Tongji University, which serves as its hub, the regional consortium includes New South Wales-Wollongong University and Griffith University in Australia, the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Yale University in the United States and the Asian Institute of Technology. The Thai Environmental and Community Development Association (or “Magic Eyes”), an NGO in Thailand, and the Hanns Seidel Foundation office in Jakarta also provide support. The Leadership Programme on Environment and Sustainable Development outcomes will be used by UNEP as contributions to the UN International Decade for Education for Sustainable Development, which begins next year. For more information, see www.rrcap.unep.org/ uneptongji or contact: Tim Higham, Regional Information Officer, UNEP, Bangkok, Tel: +66 2 288 21 27, E-mail: higham@un.org; or Dr. May Li, Deputy Director, International Office, Tongji University, Tel: +86 21 659 82612, E-mail: may@ mail.tongji.edu.cn. ◆ UNEP Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE) HIGHLIGHTS UNEP project will help restore Iraq’s marshlands UNEP has launched a project to restore the environment and provide clean drinking water in Iraq’s marshlands. This project will be implemented by UNEP DTIE. Years of neglect and mismanagement have brought about the marshlands’ severe deterioration. Damaged by the construction of dams on the Tigris and Euphrates, they were drained by the previous Iraqi regime. In 2001 UNEP alerted the world to the crisis in this region when it released satellite images showing that 90% of the marshlands had been lost. By 2003 another 3% (325 km 3 ) had disappeared. Experts feared that the marshlands would cease to exist by 2008. Last year the people living in this region began to open floodgates and breach embankments to bring water back. By April 2004, around one-fifth of the marshes (some 3000 km 3 ) had been re-flooded. The challenge now is to initiate sustainable development in the region and provide clean water and sanitation services to up to 85,000 people. The project is funded by the Japanese government. Klaus Toepfer, UNEP’s Executive Director, says: “I am delighted that the Japanese government has stepped in to support a new beginning for the Marshlands and the Marsh Arabs. Half the world’s wetlands have been lost in the past 100 years. I am sure that the lessons learnt during this project will provide important clues on how to resuscitate other lost and degraded wetlands elsewhere on the globe.” Monique Barbut, Director of UNEP DTIE, adds: “We will be putting together, in close cooperation with the relevant Iraqi ministries, a 10-person team of local and international experts… We hope to begin field studies and pilot water treatment projects towards the end of the year.” For more information, contact: Robert Bisset, Spokesperson for Europe, Tel: 33 1 4437 7613, Mobile: 33 6 2272 5842, E-mail: robert.bisset@ unep.fr. For press releases, reports and satellite images, see www.grid.unep.ch/activities/sustainable/tigris/ index.php. ◆ Environmental performance guidelines drafted for the financial services sector Companies, institutions, organizations and representatives of civil society, as well as individuals, have been asked for contributions to the Financial Services Sector Supplement (Environmental Performance) being developed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the UNEP Finance Initiative (UNEP FI). In September 2003 an international working group was convened to work on a pilot version of the supplement – a set of globally applicable indicators to be used (in conjunction with the GRI Guidelines) to address the environmental impacts of financial sector products and services. These indicators will complement the existing GRI Financial Services Sector Supplement (Social Performance). Working group members come from 19 leading institutions, representing financial and nonfinancial sectors. It is co-chaired by one industry and one non-industry member. The group has met three times to review previous work on environmental performance indicators and to develop draft indicators. It is assisted by an Observer Group providing peer review and additional input. Since November, work on the indicators has been supported by Arthur D. Little Ltd. Fifteen draft indicators have been released for public comment (www.unepfi.net/gri/public). There will be a fourth meeting of the working group in October to review feedback from the public consultation process. For more information, contact: Niamh O’Sullivan, UNEP FI, (niamh.osullivan@unep.ch), or Sean Gilbert, GRI (gilbert@globalreporting.org). Also see www.unepfi.net/gri. ◆ Capacity building in Africa Integrated assessment has been highlighted as a priority for the UNEP-UNCTAD (UN Conference on Trade and Development) Capacity Building Task Force for Trade, Environment and Development (CBTF). Training workshops will be part of a series of capacity building activities. The Training Workshop on Integrated Assessment for African Countries, held at UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, in July, targeted 80 ◆ UNEP Industry and Environment April – September 2004
N e w s Saving the world’s seas and oceans was the theme of World Environment Day 2004, which was hosted by Barcelona, Spain. This year’s WED theme, “Wanted! Seas and Oceans – Dead or Alive?” reflects UNEP’s activities on the marine environment and sustainable coastal livelihoods. UNEP released the findings of a report on cold water coral reefs around the world, Cold-Water Coral Reefs: Out of Sight – No Longer Out of Mind. The report includes information about cold water coral reefs in various parts of the world. Found at temperatures of 4-13ºC, these reefs are usually at depths of 200-1000 metres. However, they can occur in water as shallow as 40 metres or as deep as 6300 metres. Cold water corals thrive in waters off the coasts of more than 40 countries, including Spain, Surinam and the Seychelles. Until recently, it was popularly believed that cold water corals were largely confined to waters in the northern hemisphere (e.g. off Canada, Scandinavia and the British Isles). The report demonstrates UNEP’s focus on marine protection as a theme for WED 2004. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a message: “Less than two years ago, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, governments committed to time-bound goals to end unsustainable fishing practices, restore depleted fish stocks, establish a regular global assessment of Lophelia is the dominant deepwater colonial coral in the North Atlantic Cold water coral reefs a focus of WED 2004 the marine environment, and create a representative network of marine protected areas. This last goal, to be achieved by 2012, is particularly important. Less than half of one per cent of marine habitats are protected – compared with 11.5% of global land area. Yet studies show that protecting critical marine habitats, such as warm- and cold-water coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves, can dramatically increase fish size and quantity, with obvious benefits to largescale commercial as well as local fisheries.’’ Klaus Toepfer, UNEP’s Ex-ecutive Director, added that during the last four years “the world has adopted a number of internationally agreed development targets, including the Millennium Development Goals and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. We have a blueprint for a sustainable future. The challenge is in the implementation. Protecting the marine environment is an essential part of the solution – for food security, for health and for the livelihoods of the billions who depend to one degree or another on the sea. However, protecting the marine environment also means addressing human activities on land, which is where 80% of marine pollution originates.” World Environment Day is observed in more than 120 countries. It was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the UNEP asks for photo competition entries World Environment Day was the occasion for announcing UNEP’s fourth International Photographic Competition on the Environment. With “Celebrating Diversity” as its theme, the competition will run until 24 October 2004. Sponsored by Canon and several other global companies, it is open to photographers of all nationalities and ages. The winner will receive a Gold Prize of US$ 20,000. The General category is open to photographers 25 years or over. There are also categories and cash prizes for “Youth” and “Children”. The panel of judges, headed by Takeyoshi Tanuma of Japan, will include Sebastião Salgado of Brazil, Raghu Rai of India and Susan Meiselas of the United States, all world-famous photographers. The awards ceremony will take place in Japan in March 2005. For full details about the competition’s rules and regulations, information on how to submit photographs in both hard and electronic formats, and application forms, see www. unep-photo.com. Human Environment. Another resolution adopted by the General Assembly at that time led to the creation of UNEP. For more information, see www.unep.org/ wed/2004. Also see www.barcelona2004. org for the Universal Forum of Cultures in Barcelona. selected African research and training institutions as well as economic and trade bodies. The workshop’s objective was to train trainers. It was also intended to introduce economic and trade entities in the region to integrated assessment as a tool for identifying the impacts of trade and trade related policies on the environment and development. The workshop was aimed at providing participants with a better understanding of the concept of integrated assessment and an opportunity to discuss the application of this concept in Africa. For more information, see www.unep.ch/etu. ◆ Stockholm convention enters into force Persistant organic pollutants (POPs) are among the most dangerous substances ever released to the environment through human activity. For decades they have been responsible for illness and mortality in people and animals. POPs can cause cancer and damage the nervous, reproductive and immune systems. Exposure to them is also associated with an unknown number of birth defects. The entry into force of the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants on May 17 marks the beginning of an international effort to rid the world of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, furans, and nine highly dangerous pesticides, all of which are POPs. “The Stockholm Convention will save lives and protect the natural environment – particularly in the poorest communities and countries – by banning the production and use of some of the most toxic chemicals known to humankind,” says Klaus Toepfer, UNEP’s Executive Director. “Over the next several years national investments plus donor pledges of hundreds of millions will channel more than 500 million dollars into an overdue and urgently needed initiative to ensure that future generations do not have to live as we do with measurable quantities of these toxic chemicals stored in their bodies.” Besides banning the use of POPs, the treaty focuses on the growing accumulation of unwanted and obsolete stockpiles of pesticides and other products that contain these chemicals. Dump sites and old drums of toxins are leaching chemicals into the soil, poisoning water, wildlife and people. The Convention also requires disposal of PCBs and PCB-containing wastes. For more information, contact: Michael Williams, UNEP Information Officer in Geneva, Tel: +41 22 917 8242, Mobile : +41 79 409 1528, E-mail: michael.williams@unep.ch. Also see www. pops.int. ◆ Sustainable consumption and production training material on-line UNEP DTIE, in cooperation with UNEP partner InWEnt, has carried out training workshops at National Cleaner Production Centers worldwide since 2000. Training has focused on the integration of sustainable consumption and cleaner production. It has also covered multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and environmental technology assessment. The training package, developed for NCPC directors and other professionals, includes materials for a two-day session on integrating cleaner production and sustainable consumption, with supplementary reading. For more information, see http://www.uneptie. org/pc/cp/library/training/cdgpack/cpsc.htm. ◆ UNEP Industry and Environment April – September 2004 ◆ 81
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