UN expert warns about excessive pesticide use in Paraguay

By Bala Chambers

BUENOS AIRES (AA) - Paraguay's excessive pesticide use is "poisoning the country and seriously affecting the lives and health of its people," a UN expert said Friday.

"Laws that control pesticides are not enforced in Paraguay. This generates impunity for human rights violations and abuses of thousands of people exposed to toxic contamination," said Marcos Orellana, special rapporteur on toxics and human rights.

Orellana said some cooperatives tend the land responsibly. But Paraguay's agroindustrial model has affected different communities due to an increase in aerial and ground spraying of "hazardous pesticides," he said in preliminary observations shared in a statement.

He warned that indigenous people and subsistence communities are being cornered by monocultures and other crops dependent on pesticides.
"Those who oppose the contamination of their communities are often criminalised by the Public Prosecutor's Office," said Orellana.

The expert added that "the high concentration of land in the hands of a few, and the consequent exclusion of large segments of the population, aggravates these environmental injustices."

During his Paraguay visit, Orellana met government officials, relatives of victims, members of civil society and the private sector, UN agencies, subsistence communities and indigenous peoples in the departments of Presidente Hayes, Alto Parana, Canindeyu, San Pedro and Guiara.

Orellana​​​​​​​ urged authorities to uphold several UN rulings concerning due process and diligence regarding the rights of indigenous communities as well as a prominent environmental ruling.

"It is the responsibility of the State to guarantee the right to a healthy environment and to protect its population from the indiscriminate effects of the use of hazardous pesticides in Paraguay,” he said.

Orellana also said the international community must stop the "double standard of trade of hazardous pesticides that are prohibited from use in their countries of origin."
The Special Rapporteur is expected to present his full report to the Human Rights Council next September.

It will focus on the "environmentally sound management of hazardous waste and implementation of international environmental agreements related to industrial chemicals and mercury, among other issues."