AmbienDura

From 7 to 11 April, the 8th conference of the INECE network was held in Cape Town, South Africa. More than 200 participants from 60 developing and developed countries gathered to discuss compliance and enforcement matters concerning environmental provisions. Laws and agreements developed to protect the environment and human health have no effect, when they are not properly implemented and enforced.
Experience has shown that enforcement has a much lower priority than developing policy and laws, even though enforcement is required to close the regulatory cycle. Obviously enforcement is not the only tool to make individuals and enterprises comply with provisions. Compliance assistance tools such as information, incentives, clear communication, web-based tools and subsidies can also support a higher compliance rate with the regulations. Nonetheless, enforcement is also important but apparently not politically attractive.
Ms Nancy Isarin from Ambiendura attended the INECE conference and presented the Seaport Network Initiative. An initiative to bring together inspectors and officials active in ports all over the world involved in inspecting and tracing illegal movements of hazardous waste that are shipped through ports. Despite the fact that international, regional and national regulations exist to prevent illegal movements and environmentally unsound treatment of waste, little is known about the percentages of illegal waste movements.

Separate studies and projects however, report alarming high numbers of illegalities. Until now it has been extremely difficult to get sufficient resources for inspections and enforcement actions and to get countries and organisations collaborate on this issue. The initiative was supported by the group. Next steps will be prepared to establish this Seaport Network, involve key regions and partners, developed a strategic paper and a toolkit and agree upon concrete actions.
Click here and here for more information about the Seaport Network.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 14:17 and is filed under Events, Enforcement, Waste. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.