space Press Releases, News Stories

Environmental News Service

Danida had planned a monitoring program to ensure the emissions of dioxins and furans would be within European regulations on incineration of hazardous waste. The plan failed to convince the Mozambique government, which announced it plans to export the 300 tons of obsolete and unidentifiable pesticide waste for destruction in a developed country.

"While we appreciate Danida's efforts to stop the immediate threat posed by the pesticides by collecting and cleaning up the sites around the country, we have all along been demanding that the incineration part of the project be stopped," said Jacob Hartmann of Greenpeace, one of the groups that helped create Livaningo. The name means "all that sheds light."

Basel Action Network, Environmental Justice Network Forum, and Essential Action which cofounded GAIA Global Anti-Incineration Alliance were involved in setting up Livaningo. The groups sponsored a visit to Mozambique by Dr. Paul Connett, a professor of chemistry and critic of hazardous waste incineration. The visit was arranged after it appeared that there had been no public consultations and the environmental assessment of the project had been written in English. Mozambique is a Portuguese speaking country. For two years, Livaningo took its campaign to residents and businesses in the town of Matola, where the cement factory is based. The group warned people of the toxic hazards of pollution from incineration, and held some of the first civil demonstrations known in post-revolution Mozambique, engaging government officials and local media.

Livaningo representatives even travelled to Denmark to plead their case before Danida and the Danish Parliament.

"We just decided that we would not fail, although there were many times when it looked as if all hope was lost," said Anabela Lemos of Livaningo. "In the course of the struggle, our people have awoken to the problems of pesticides, incineration, and toxic wastes, and have learned that the ultimate solution is to avoid the use of toxic materials in the first place. It has been a great education for all of us here in Mozambique," Lemos said.

Mozambique is a poor country slowly rebuilding itself after decades of misrule by Portugal, a coup in 1974 and civil war in the years that followed. Since United Nations forces left in 1995, the country has been at relative peace.

"Had the civil society only been consulted at an earlier stage, Danida and the Mozambique authorities could have saved themselves a lot of trouble and even benefited with a cutting edge approach of dealing with obsolete pesticides such as holding pesticide producers responsible and destroying pesticides using non-incineration and non-polluting destruction technology," said Lemos.

Thomas Schjerbeck, Danish ambassador in Maputo, addressed this issue in an editorial written in South African newspaper "The Mail and Guardian" last year. "Danida agrees that as many of the obsolete pesticides as possible should be returned to the producers. But it cannot be assured that the producers will take everything back and, in a best case scenario, we are still left with up to 500 tons of pesticides, for which it is not possible to identify producers."

Livaningo is calling for the pesticides to be rendered non-toxic using alternative non-incineration destruction technology. It wants the costs borne by the companies that originally exported the pesticides to Mozambique, with Denmark as co-sponsor.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/oct2000/2000L-10-13-12.html