Introduction

At its second meeting held in May 2006, the Conference of the Parties adopted decision SC-2/13 on effectiveness evaluation in which it agreed to implement the elements for the Global Monitoring Plan and to establish a Provisional Ad hoc Technical Working Group to oversee the plan

The first meeting of the Provisional Ad hoc Technical Working Group was held at RECETOX Research Centre of Excellence for Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology - Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, from 9-12 October 2006 and the second meeting at the International Environment House, Geneva, Switzerland, from 30 January to 3 February 2007

Opening of the meeting

Organizational matters

Table of contents

1.0  Background to the environmental monitoring and elements of effectiveness evaluatio

2.0  Objective of the Global Monitoring Pla

The purpose of the Implementation Plan is to outline the main tasks that must be completed in relation to the Global Monitoring Programmes (GMP) for the first evaluation. It sets out actions, modalities, responsibilities, and time lines for the completion of the work. It is intended to be a living document that will evolve to meet the needs of the GMP. For a concise and non-technical description of the GMP and its main operational elements, the “Global Monitoring Plan for the First Evaluation” should be consulted. More technical details can be found in the “Guidance Document for the First Evaluation” and in media specific methodology protocols.

The Conference of the Parties, 1. Agrees to complete the first effectiveness evaluation at its fourth meeting, in 2009; 2. Decides to implement the elements for a global monitoring plan as proposed in the annex to the present decision and urges implementation. The field test requested by the Conference of the Parties at its first meeting, necessary to this implementation, should be carried out according to the elements of the annex to the present decision, subject to the availability of funds;

Phase I Activities to support the Article 16 effectiveness evaluation that will be conducted by the Conference of the Parties at its fourth meeting in 2009- ‘the first evaluation’. Phase II Activities to support effectiveness evaluations after 2009- ‘the subsequent evaluations’. Activity ‘Package’ of related monitoring and/or research activities that constitute a self-contained ‘programme’ implemented at the national or sub-regional/regional and global levels

Article 16 of the Stockholm Convention requires the Conference of the Parties (COP) to periodically review the effectiveness of the Convention, with the first review commencing four years after entry into force. The effectiveness evaluation shall be conducted on the basis of information, including comparable monitoring data on the presence of the chemicals listed in Annexes A, B, and C of the Convention, and on their regional and global transport.

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) (UNEP, 2001) entered into force 17 May, 2004. As of 12 December, 2006 the Convention had 136 Parties. The major features of the Convention are summarized in “Ridding the world from POPs” (UNEP, 2002), a layman’s guide to the Stockholm Convention available in the six official languages of the United Nations. The objective of the Stockholm Convention on POPs can be stated as to: Protect human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutants by reducing or eliminating releases to the environment.

The objective of the Stockholm Convention is to protect human health and the environment from POPs with the ultimate goal to eliminate them, where feasible.. An obvious way to evaluate the effectiveness of the Convention is to measure the concentration of the POPs listed in annexes A, B, and C of the Convention in relevant matrices (see chapter xx). The initial twelve persistent organic pollutants include the following substances or groups of substances:

The aim of this chapter is to review the statistical requisites that must be satisfied if a monitoring programme is to meet the objectives set out in Chapter 1. However, objectives at that level will not help to answer questions such as: How many samples do we need to take? For how long a period do we need to continue monitoring? How frequent should we sample? Furthermore, we need to specify the magnitude of the changes or differences we have to detect. The risks of reaching the wrong conclusions (e.g. to conclude that there is a trend when there is not or to miss a true trend) have also to be considered.

The focus of the global programme to support the effectiveness evaluation of the Stockholm Convention is on environmental background concentrations in media with a high potential for comparability. The COP has decided that the air monitoring and human exposure through breast milk or blood serum will be used as core media for the first evaluation. For future evaluations, the COP has also decided to endeavour to supplement the core data with data from other media such as biota, water, soil, and sediments (SC-2/13). The present guidance is aimed at the core media for the first assessment and the document will be revised for future evaluations. However much of the present document would apply also to the indicated supplemental media for future assessments, but specific considerations would be needed (e.g. for sampling).

Some general considerations that pertain to all the GMP matrices are discussed below.

The objective of the air sampling network is to obtain representative data for assessing time trends and the regional and global transport of POPs. We interpret ‘representative’ as being a sufficient number of sampling sites to make general conclusions about POPs trends and not to be representative of heterogeneity of that region. Ch. 3. shows that complete geographical coverage for a particular region or continent is not economically feasible and would require an extremely dense sampling network and considerable prior investigatory work to assess regional variability on air concentrations in POPs.

Human milk as well as blood have been used as markers of exposure of humans to certain persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Both these human sample media can show comparable temporal trends in a particular population because they integrate environmental exposure as well as dietary exposure related to different consumption habits. Furthermore, they provide relevant information on POPs transfer to infants and potential health effects

- Before starting new measurements, it is important to investigate whether there are any other monitoring activities going on in the region. It may be global programmes, such as the WHO GEMS/Food, regional programmes such as AMAP, or national monitoring activities. Another source of information is the reports from the recent global assessment of PTS. It is assumed that the GMP shall, at least partly, be based on existing activities, and co-operation with those is essential. This may also influence the strategy for the chemical analyses, and if the methods used in on-going projects are good enough, those can be applied also for the GMP.

The following section is, to a large extent, is taken from the recommendations for POPs analysis developed under the UNEP/GEF project “Assessment of Existing Capacity and Capacity Building Needs to Analyse POPs in Developing Countries”

The results from the GMP will be used to determine trends from monitoring of POPs globally to support the effectiveness evaluation of the Stockholm Convention. A primary goal is therefore to obtain (comparable) data that are capable of revealing trends over time in emissions and/or exposure to contaminants of concern, in the various regions.

In the absence of an existing comprehensive discussion on the structure of the reports, the draft structures outlined below are based upon an examination of the objectives of Article 16 of the Stockholm Convention and of the GMP, together with a consideration of how other initiatives have approached similar tasks. Although a number of regional and global monitoring programmes have been established to report on the presence of POPs in the environment, there is very little previous experience of POPs monitoring designed to help evaluate the effectiveness of a legally binding international agreement. The 1998 Protocol on POPs under the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (which entered into force in October 2003) (UNECE 1998) contains in Article 10 a requirement to review the sufficiency and effectiveness of the obligations taking into account the effects of the deposition of POPs. The first review was completed in 2005 (UNECE, 2005).

The Conference of Parties, in its decision SC-2/13, requested the Secretariat to identify monitoring programmes that may update the information presented in document UNEP/POPS/COP.2/INF/10 on existing human health and environment monitoring programmes, including other programmes that can contribute to the Global Monitoring Plan.

The Conference of the Parties, in its decision SC-2/13, requested the Secretariat to develop a comprehensive regional inventory of capacities and conduct needs assessment with contributions from national Stockholm Convention focal points. With this request, the Secretariat has distributed questionnaires (Questionnaire II) to countries and international organizations for reporting on their capacity for POPs monitoring. This survey will extend our knowledge of existing monitoring programmes around the world and help identify the needs of programmes that can contribute to a global monitoring plan on POPs for effectiveness evaluation of the Stockholm Convention.

Introduction

At its second meeting held in May 2006, the Conference of the Parties adopted decision SC-2/13 on effectiveness evaluation in which it agreed to implement the elements for the Global Monitoring Plan and to establish a Provisional Ad hoc Technical Working Group to oversee the plan

The first meeting of the Provisional Ad hoc Technical Working Group was held at RECETOX Research Centre of Excellence for Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology - Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, from 9-12 October 2006 and the second meeting at the International Environment House, Geneva, Switzerland, from 30 January to 3 February 2007