Most Caribbean, Latin Wastewater Flushed Into Sea Untreated

by Diego Cevallos

(IPS) MEXICO CITY -- Latin American and Caribbean nations seem hardly to worry about treating the massive discharge of garbage, fossil fuels and pesticides into their maritime waters. Millions of dollars are lost as a result, in the deterioration of ecosystems, reduction of fish populations and harm to human health.

Studies show that between 80 and 90 percent of the region's wastewater coming from land-based sources reaches the sea without being treated. The polluted water surrounds millions of fish and crustaceans, including those in greatest demand on the market, and flows into fragile ecosystems, which are already showing signs of damage.

Although there is scant information available, what data exists indicates there is "a big problem," Chris Corbin, the top United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) authority on marine contamination in the Caribbean, told Tierramerica.

The UNEP expert and delegates from the region's governments are meeting this week in the Mexican capital to study the situation, make progress on national and joint projects and outline strategies.

For most of the governments in Latin America and the Caribbean, pollution of the seas and other bodies of water has not been a priority, lamented Corbin. Nevertheless, in 1996, the region's environment ministers declared it the main environmental problem.

"Agreements and pledges, there are many. But it's all just words," says Felipe Vazquez, a scientist with the ocean and lake research institute at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Latin America and the Caribbean have 64,000 km of coastline and 16 million square km of maritime territory, affected daily by thousands of tons of wastewater coming from urban and industrial zones and farmland.

Sixty of the region's 77 largest cities are located on the coast, and 60 percent of the population lives within 100 km of the oceans.

These urban centers and their industries, including the petroleum industry, dump their waste into the sea, creating direct pressure on marine habitat. But the culprits are also found inland: their wastewater reaches the sea via the rivers.

Furthermore, barely two percent of sewage in Latin America and the Caribbean is treated before being dumped into rivers or the sea.

The region's marine platform is quite shallow and relatively narrow, mostly less than 20 km off the coast, where it falls abruptly in drop-offs of up to 6,000 metres. This unique underwater topography means that the deep sea currents replace the contaminated water relatively quickly.

But the polluted discharge has reached the point that even this natural "advantage" is seeing diminishing returns. Studies by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), a UN regional agency, indicate that some mangrove forests and coral reefs have been damaged beyond their capacity for regeneration.

Furthermore, throughout the region, countries are reporting reduced fish catches, and there is an obvious decline in the quality of food originating from the sea.

There are no conclusive data on the impacts of these problems on human health, but investigations by UNEP report that the consumption of food from coastal and freshwater sources that are contaminated produces around 2.5 million cases of hepatitis and 25,000 deaths a year.

Diseases like cholera and diarrhea and many kinds of skin problems are directly linked to contamination of the region's seas.

Vazquez maintains that the governments are "paralysed" in confronting the advance of ocean pollution, and that the measures that are implemented are few and far between.

"There's the situation, for example, of the mangroves, an ecosystem that is in decline," he said in a Tierramerica interview.

The surface area around the globe that is covered by mangroves -- wetland forests of mangrove trees in coastal zones like estuaries, bays and coves -- saw a 35-percent reduction in the past few decades, and now total just 17 million hectares worldwide.

The destruction of mangroves by pollution, urban expansion and encroaching industries and agriculture occurs at a pace of 2.1 percent a year. Meanwhile, tropical forests are disappearing at a rate of 0.8 percent annually, according to studies gathered by the international eco-watchdog Greenpeace.

UNEP warned in June that in Latin America the mangroves are relentlessly being destroyed, and in countries like Honduras and Ecuador the situation is particularly grave, as a result of mangrove destruction to make way for the construction of shrimp farming operations.

Seventy percent of the fish caught in the oceans were hatched, depended in some way, or reproduced in mangroves, which serve as natural barriers for very fragile coastal areas.

According to an ECLAC document on river pollution and its effects on coastal areas and oceans, in Latin America and the Caribbean there are few resources being earmarked and few efforts being made to confront the phenomenon.

Big problems exist in regards to integration and in the approach to water management, as well as in strategies for controlling the negative effects of polluted rivers on the lower basins and coastal areas, including the discharge of solid waste into the sea and on the beaches, the result of turning the rivers into true dumps, says the ECLAC study.

If immediate steps are not taken, the coastal nations will see their economic losses worsen as a result of a decline in tourism and the fishing industry, warned UNAM researcher Vazquez.

The problem of land-based contamination of the seas has been at the center of global debates and initiatives since the 1970s. To confront it, many global and regional agreements have been signed, and many of those have been sponsored by the United Nations.

This week's meeting in Mexico City is part of the process, and one more step towards the inter-governmental conference of the Global Program of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-Based Contamination, scheduled for October 2006 in China.