Environmental Problems in East Asian Countries - Research Paper Example

Running head: Environmental Problems Environmental Problems in East Asian Countries By ____________________ East Asia - Environmental Problems East Asia despite being rich in minerals and natural resources is confronting to some serious environmental threats that cannot be ignored. Poverty and over population seems to be the major cause behind environmental exertion which has only exacerbated the problems into dilemmas and need serious measures to be taken in this context. Among the major environmental threats, the most common, which we would discuss, are: 1. Pesticide Misuse 2. Air, water, soil Pollution Pesticide Misuse Pesticides have played an important part particularly in China thereby achieving higher yield through greater irrigation, increased mechanization, and new, high-yielding varieties of crops but the misuse of pesticides has always been a common problem in agricultural context, since its emergence. The main reason behind this problem is the lack of knowledge about pesticides and there never used to be any effective regulations or administrative measures. The peasants are unaware as to which pesticide is suitable for their crops or exactly how to use it. There are also some inappropriate practices of pesticides application that result in harmful residues on the crops. For example, when pests are not controlled by the pesticide at the recommended dosage, farmers arbitrarily increase the amount applied. Similar increased applications are made to counter rain after the dosage of pesticide. Cross-pollution of different Farmers' pesticide applications in adjacent fields also increase the actual amount of pesticide applied to an area. Often, the farmers also use pesticides shortly before harvesting the rice if the pest problems are very serious again leading to undesirable residue levels. (Adeel, 2003, p. 45) Root Causes The inappropriate use of pesticides has led to a number of problems like air, soil and water pollution. In this context, governmental institutions and other organizations have done a lot of work at national, provincial, and municipal levels to solve these problems. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have also been established to facilitate collaboration between ministries, institutes, and industries. Specific legislation leading to regulations and rules has been enacted to establish standards for production, marketing, and use of pesticides. Similarly, many technical standards and practical methods were set up to stipulate the quality, evaluation, maximum residue limits, and detection of pesticides. This has been matched by an information system to disseminate technical information for new crop varieties, feedback of application conditions, and pollution data. (Adeel, 2003, p. 45) Following are two major root causes: Limited Development of Pesticide Industry The pesticide manufacturing industry in most of the East Asian countries were never well developed. China is an example of such Industry, yielding 60% of rice. The capabilities of production units and the types of pesticides produced are limited. Distribution of locally produced pesticides is also uneven. There are few factories, which are equipped to make chemical and biological pesticides. Low-efficiency pesticides, including some non-prohibited chloropesticides, are used on a large scale. Cost effectiveness might be one reason of using some low efficiency pesticides. This situation has resulted in increasing imports of unfamiliar pesticides that may have the potential for misuse, over dosage, and new environmental problems. Poor control and Lack of monitoring over imported Pesticides Imported pesticides are expensive and requires extensive care and well controlled process to be adopted, however the quality of foreign pesticides are also not always consistent and guaranteed to produce better results every time. On a national scale, pesticides are imported without a coordinated plan, which indirectly affects the plans for production, delivery, and use of domestic pesticides. In addition, it is more difficult to ensure that foreign pesticides have been used correctly. (Adeel, 2003, p. 47) Strategies - Monitoring and Governance of Pesticides At present there is no comprehensive system for the monitoring of pesticide residues in rice or other crops for domestic consumption in East Asian countries, particularly in China. But it is believed that the sanitary quarantine stations at county, provincial, or municipal levels under the Ministry of Public Health have performed satisfactorily for many years. These stations conduct the sampling themselves, analyse the residue, and make a report to the relevant departments. The imported (mainly wheat) and exported (mainly rice) crops are tested by the State Administration for Entry/Exit Inspection and Quarantine. According to the monitoring report, no problem cases have been detected during this monitoring - in other words, there have been no residue data that surpass the corresponding maximum residue limits. Very low levels of a few pesticides have been found in unpolished rice and imported cereals. For example, some fumigating reagents and chlorinated pesticides were found at levels below the limits in domestic rice and imported wheat. The China-Japan Friendship Center for Environmental Protection has undertaken a project for environmental monitoring and analysis in which polished rice samples were collected from different areas and analysed. No significant level of pesticides was detected (Hao 1996). Long Term Plan: A new generation of pesticide substitutes for current pesticides needs to be developed. This requires a long-term plan for the development of new techniques for pest control, the decrease of pesticide use, and the prediction and observing of pollution and protection of the environment. Better medicines should be developed or imported at a large scale, which are lacking in East Asia particularly in China and Malaysia. Because of the limited resources in East Asia, this region has to seek assistance from European countries that have managed to control misuse of pesticides by adopting various Pest management programs and techniques. "Among those programs the most effective is Integrated Pest Management (IPM), a program that is based upon common sense practices. IPM programs use current, comprehensive information on the life cycles of pests and their interaction with the environment. This information, in combination with available pest control methods, is used to manage pest damage by the most economical means, and with the least possible hazard to people, property, and the environment". (Pesticides, 2006) China, Malaysia and Thailand are raising funds in order to require assistance from England and France as these countries have successfully overcome this problem in which they were involved for the last twenty years. In order to lessen the negative impact of pesticides misuse, strategies can be implemented on an enterprise level that includes supervision, inspections, tests for pesticide quality, investigation, adapting pesticide standards, introducing new technologies for pesticide analysis, carrying out pre-production evaluation for a new pesticide organize technical exchanges domestically and internationally, and provide training to technical workers in pesticide analysis for factories and regional administrative organs. (Adeel, 2003, p. 53) Air Pollution In East Asia East Asia is among the most populated and polluted regions in the world well known for its polluted air and water in particular, although different aspects have been important at different times. (Schreurs, 2003) On the small scale, point source releases of individual pollutants, which cause localised responses ranging from annoyance to physical injury. In urban areas, high concentrations of gases and particles from coal combustion and, more recently, motor vehicles have produced severe loss of air quality and significant health effects. On a regional scale, troposphere ozone formation and acid deposition have been the major threats. Finally, emissions of carbon dioxide and other radiatively active gases, together with stratospheric ozone depletion, represent planet-scale assaults on the quality of our atmospheric environment. (Colls, 2002, p. 2) There is an overall problem of pollution to ecosystems and the environment caused by pesticides. The pollution problem has received a lot of public attention. It is apparent that the regulations governing the research, production, transportation, supply, sale, and application of pesticides need to be effectively applied. There is a need for a monitoring system to evaluate the effectiveness of the regulations. There are numerous routes and ways in which pesticides may pollute the ecological system at different stages of manufacturing, transportation, storage, supply, sale, and application. Affects on Humans Air pollution is impacting both long-term (chronic) and short-term (acute) effects on plants, which are economically significant. They are also affecting visual range by absorbing and scattering light, and they damage materials by chemical action. As with plants, understanding of human responses to air pollutants has come via a number of different routes. First, air pollution disasters where the effects have been clear-cut; second, epidemiological studies of affected populations; third, controlled experiments on individuals and animal models. A number of different types of adverse health effect have been attributed to air pollution, although the severity of response depends greatly on the type of pollution, the level of exposure and individual susceptibility. (Colls, 2002, p. 343) Typical health effects include: 1. Reduced lung functioning 2. Irritation of the eyes, nose, mouth and throat 3. Asthma attacks 4. Respiratory symptoms such as coughing and wheezing 5. Restricted activity or reduced energy level 6. Increased use of medication/hospital admissions 7. Increased respiratory disease such as bronchitis 8. Premature death (Colls, 2002, p. 343) Sources of Pollution It seems there is an association between pesticide misuse and pollution, following are the causes: Water source pollution. Pesticides used in the field are washed or directly carried to the next field or underground water. Once the surface water has been polluted, it further pollutes the aquatic organisms. Pesticides in underground water can persist for a long time due to the poor capacity for self-purification of the groundwater. (Adeel, 2003, p. 49) Air pollution. This mostly happens during pesticide application, especially in plane puffing. The drifting aerosols pollute the adjacent areas. The air around pesticide production and storage sites may also be easily polluted. (Adeel, 2003, p. 49) Industrial Pollution Traffic with increasing vehicles is the major root cause particularly in East Asian countries to spread air pollution. Countries like China and Thailand are confronted to this problem, which is increasing rapidly. Soil pollution. When the residual pesticide concentration is above a certain level, it spreads to the surrounding area and endanger the adjacent planted crops. (Adeel, 2003, p. 49) Ecosystem pollution. Some high-residue pesticides may affect the whole ecological system through bioaccumulation in the food chain. Common examples of this are the organochlorinated pesticides, which persist and bioaccumulate in ecosystems. (Adeel, 2003, p. 49) Strategies East Asia has adopted various measures to clean up pollution; only Thailand has been the only country which due to lack of resources is still unable to cope with its traffic pollution mainly due to vehicle 'Rickshaws'. The best measure adopted so far is in Singapore. According to Schreurs, "Malaysia and Taiwan are approaching OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) levels of ambient air quality. In several of China's larger cities, air quality has improved although levels are still significantly below OECD levels and the country's smaller cities are experiencing a worsening in their air quality. Indonesia succeeded in getting large-scale industrial polluters to reduce their wastewater emissions, but ambient water quality remains very bad. Industrial air emissions also remain problematic. Thailand has had the least success in reducing industrial air pollution". (Schreurs, 2003) Currently OECD is conducting various programs, thereby implementing new policies to clean up industrial pollution from East Asia. South East Asian firms are also acquiring funds to clean up polluted technological environment by promoting forestry and greenery to the environmental haphazard. For this purpose they have acquired assistance from European countries in the form of "Green Labelling Programs". OECD is also looking forward to develop cleaning up policies in East Asian countries, similar to the ones created in Europe who has minimized pollution in a short time span of ten years. U.K is successful in combating pollution, as its firms annually research and prepare environmental reports, which are then entered into maintained pollution registers. Netherlands has also maintained such pollution registers, which are always open for amendment. Hopefully through the cooperation of OECD and European countries, East Asia will afford to retain and manage its natural beauty and health in the coming years. References & Bibliography Adeel Zafar, (2003) East Asian Experience in Environmental Governance: Response in a Rapidly Developing Region: United Nations University Press: New York. Colls Jeremy, (2002) Air Pollution: Spon Press: New York. Hao, Q. (1996) Annual Report to the UNU Project on Environmental Monitoring and Analysis in the East Asian Region on Technology Transfer and Environmental Governance. Tokyo: United Nations University Schreurs A, Miranda, (2003) POLLUTION CONTROL IN EAST ASIA: Lessons from Newly Industrializing Economies In Pacific Affairs. Volume: 76. Issue: 3. Pesticides, 2006 accessed from Read More