Dakar - 26/10/2007
Panapress
http://www.afriquenligne.fr

Dakar, Senegal - Mali and South Africa hold the largest stocks of obsolete pesticides in Africa, the official in charge of the Network for Environment and Sustainable Development in Africa (REDDA), Pascal Houenou, declared in Dakar, Senegal, Thursday.

Speaking at the launch of a report of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Global Environment Outlook 4 (GEO-4), Houenou said the stocks of obsolete pesticides currently in Africa were estimated at 50,000 tonnes.

"Mali and South Africa alone hold the largest stocks," he said, adding that in many African countries, the urgent changes to be carried out were the storage of chemical products, the management of invading plants and bush fires.

Houenou, one of the authors of the report, maintained the large stocks of chemical products in Mali and South Africa could mainly be explained by various reasons.

"In South Africa, this is related to the activities of the Apartheid regime while for Mali, government authorities had allowed foreign companies (to) keep large stocks of these products in their country," he said.

Launched simultaneously in Dakar and 34 other cities worldwide, the UNEP report assesses the current state of the atmosphere, the land, water and world biodiversity.

It also describes changes that have taken place and highlights the progress made in the area of the management of environmental problems over the past 20 years.