Historic Minamata pact showcased best of what DENR stands for

We congratulate Environment Secretary Ramon Paje and Director Mitch Cuna of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) for signing the Minamata Convention and for their work in drafting and negotiating, on behalf of the Philippines, this historic agreement. They were our national team at the mercury negotiations, and they did the country proud.

A participant in the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee of the Minamata Convention as a nongovernmental organization representative, I had a chance to work closely with Cuna and his team during the negotiating stages of the convention.

Cuna was one of the outspoken developing country representatives in the treaty negotiations and took a strong stance on mercury. He was a critical voice on mercury use in artisanal, small-scale gold mining, a proponent for waste prevention, and had a keen eye on developing-country needs and support for treaty implementation.

More than just attending, Cuna was ready to work. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources team would be in regular attendance at the plenary sessions. They had their sleeves rolled up at the negotiating table way past midnight, following up on issues, when most of the delegates had gone to bed. We would bump into Cuna or Elvira Pausing, also of the EMB, at the meeting halls, and they would often stop and listen to us on a given issue. They always found time to greet and dialogue with NGOs.

I was not surprised when the United Nations Environment Programme asked Cuna to chair and lead working groups.  At one time, he was asked to chair the extremely contentious working group on air emissions. I jokingly asked him whatever possessed him to agree, and he simply said, “It is hard to say no to the UN when it is asking for help.”

Cuna and his team did a lot of this work over and above their usual domestic work. They did a very good job, managing to do a lot of heavy-lifting on issues that ranged from trade to permanent storage of mercury, despite a very small three-person delegation. (Indonesia, for example, fielded at least five delegates, Japan at least a dozen.)

While this is a time for celebration, we cannot help but see bigger challenges in the future for Secretary Paje and his team in implementing the Minamata Convention. The emergence of Hong Kong/China and Singapore as major global mercury trading hubs, and of Asia as a prominent mercury-emitting region, has a tremendous impact on the Philippine mercury situation. Certainly, the Philippines would need to capitalize on its political cache to ensure that unwanted mercury does not find itself working into our shores. (This discussion is for another time.)

The Minamata Convention showcased the best of what the DENR stands for, and for what we as a nation can contribute at the international level. But we should also stress that this is just the starting point of a continuing campaign to eliminate mercury in the country and the world. The real work, and a lot of work, must be done after that.

—RICHARD GUTIERREZ,

executive director, BAN Toxics!,

www.bantoxics.org