An Inter Press Service Feature

LONDON, Dec 27 1993 (IPS) - Leading environmental groups fear that the world wide relaxation of trade barriers following a deal under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) could lead to wide scale ecological abuses in the Third World and especially Africa.

Environmentalists here say low labour costs in the Third World will encourage heavily-polluting manufacturing industries to set up subsidiaries in Africa and other regions of the Third World. Others fear that Northern firms will take advantage of weaker environmental laws to dump toxic waste in Africa.

''The problem of toxic waste dumping in the environment is one of the greatest problems facing us today,'' says Ben Jackson, of the London-based World Development Movement. ''And the new GATT deal has made it much easier for these polluting industries to set up shop in Africa.''

''We will (see the) increase the rate of job losses to cheaper waged, more competitive economies,'' says British environmentalist Colin Hines. One in three German firms intend to transfer part of their production to eastern Europe and Asia, he adds.

Jackson notes that aside from the low labour costs, Western industrial managers will also take advantage of less stringent environmental, health and safety regulations in the region. And as awareness of environmental problems build in South America and Asia, multinationals may end up relocating to Africa, he says.

''Africa will be the next port of call for these polluting industries,'' he warns. ''Even if they have reservations, the economic desperation of African countries will leave them no other option but to take them in.''

Some products banned in the West are now produced in Africa by firms which simply relocated without fear of legal action. Almost all the firms are Northern owned; a mere fifteen firms in five western countries control 90 percent of all pesticide production.

The pesticide DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1971. Dieldrin, described as 'extremely hazardous' by the WHO, was proven to be carcinogenic in 1962 and it and Aldrin were banned in the U.S. in 1976 -- but all but are being manufactured in Africa and are widely used in agricultural production there.

Now, with the lowering of international trade barriers -- and the ever-increasing attractiveness of Africa to dirty industries -- experts agree that the relocation of hazardous technologies and processes to Africa is set to increase dramatically.

Under the guise of extending U.S.-Mexican economic links, polluting U.S. industries were allowed ''to establish themselves in the country without enacting and implementing regulations to protect the environment''.

Firms that relocated to Mexico -- and other countries in South America and Asia -- to take advantage of cheap labour and lax environmental standards are metal refining and smelting industries and producers of asbestos, chlorine, leaded petrol and pesticides.

These industrial sites or 'maquiladoras' along the border with U.S. are now heavily polluted and, say environmentalists, will take decades and billions of dollars to clean up.

''Elites in the south may benefit from GATT but experience suggests that the majority of people in the south will lose,'' said Tim Lang, Hines' co-author on a recent book on GATT and the Third World and fellow member of The GATT Project group.

In the mining sector in Africa the existing environmental damage is vast. In Sierra Leone, for example, techniques used by the U.S. firm Nord Resources Inc. to mine rutile has stripped huge tracts of arable lands in the south of the country, without much obvious reward to its people.

All environmentalists are agreed that pressure should be brought to bear on the major industralised nations -- and Third World countries -- to recognise environmental and social issues in development strategies.

Growth promised by GATT is not enough to make up for the damage say analysts. An 11-fold increase in world trade since World War Two (as measured by the World Bank) has not prevented a drop in the incomes of the poorest countries and peoples in the world.

Africa, which was self-sufficient in food at the beginning of the war, is now facing mass starvation while even in ''rich'' countries like Britain, the poorest 10 percent are now 14 percent worse off than they were 14 years ago.

The World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) say GATT could make the world wealthier by 270 billion dollars, but admit this will result in a 2.6 billion dollar loss for African countries as a whole.

The major profits are instead likely to end up in the tills of the 500 or so multinational companies that the Bank's economists estimate control 70 percent of world trade.

Back...