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Indonesia declares fight against illegal mercury trade
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Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar (left) presents the Bali Declaration on Combating Illegal Trade of Mercury to the executive secretary of the Minamata Convention on Mercury Monika Stankiewicz (right) at the Bali Nusa Dua Convention Center, Nusa Dua, on March 20, 2022. (Courtesy of the Environment and Forestry Ministry/-)
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ndonesia has introduced a global declaration that calls on parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury to tackle illegal trade of mercury, with the hope that such a move would spur stronger international cooperation in the future.
The declaration was read in Nusa Dua, Bali, where Indonesia is hosting the fourth Conference of Parties (COP4) to the Minamata Convention on Mercury. The conference, which is being held from March 21 to 25, was preceded by online sessions held in November last year.
Indonesia has promoted the non-binding declaration, which is still under discussion and is hoped to be endorsed by parties to the convention, as one of the key outcomes as the COP4 host.
In addition, Indonesia is expected to lead discussions among parties to the convention about the review of annexes A and B, which list products that use mercury and manufacturing processes in which mercury or mercury compounds are used, during COP4.
The parties are also set to discuss the assessment criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation of the convention against its goals, which is referred to as effectiveness evaluation, during the conference.
The Minamata Convention, which entered into force in 2017, is a global treaty that aims to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury. It is named after a city in Japan that became the epicenter of Minamata disease, a neurological disease caused by severe mercury poisoning, in the 1950s.
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