Dar es Salaam, Tanzania A public forum on Pesticides Impact on Health and Environment prompted a lively debate among participants. Held on 1 March 2022 at Alliance Francaise, with support from the French Embassy, the discussion ranged from issues of pesticides in general, to their health and environmental impacts, alternatives such as agroecological farming, and methods of changing government such as lobbying strategies.
Highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) are a threat to human health and the environment, with significant impacts on developing and transition countries. In 2005, more than 100 governments at the Fourth International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM4) agreed that HHPs are an issue of global concern and reached a consensus resolution to give priority to promoting agro-ecological alternatives in the process of implementing the strategy on HHPs developed by FAO-UNEP-WHO.
In celebrating the International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action (ILPPWA), Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) and other institutions had been urged to enforce standards on lead in paint to protect children.
THE government plans to conduct an inventory of all miners and scrutinise their work environment to control and phase out mercury use. The Minister of State in the Vice President’s Office, Union and Environment, Mr January Makamba, revealed the plan in an interview with the ‘Daily News’ in Dar es Salaam over the weekend.
LOCAL health and environmental conservations activists are putting pressure on regulators to impose stringent guidelines on locally manufactured and imported children’s toys as studies show that they are harmful.
Tanzania Bureau of Standards’ Acting Director General, Engineer Edna Ndumbaro, has announced that Tanzania plans, over the next four years, to remove all paints with lead substances from the market.
In addition, government representatives from Kenya and Tanzania have agreed to work to revise the lead limit of the current East African Community (EAC) standards on various types of paint to 90 ppm total lead.
