Central American countries meet to further discuss a regional PRTR

December 2011, San Salvador, El Salvador – A meeting was organized by the Central American Commission on Environment and Development (CCAD) to further discuss the key elements of a regional PRTR in Central America. Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTRs) are catalogues or databases of potentially harmful chemicals releases and transfers, including information on the nature and quantity of such releases and transfers to the air, water, and land. PRTRs make this information accessible to the public and all stakeholders supporting the communities' right-to-know in regard to environmental matters as well as providing important data to identify areas of pollution. The Council of Ministers of Environment of Central America agreed in June 2010 to start designing national PRTRs in all Central American countries that would feed into a regional PRTR, compiling information on the releases of the most important polluters in the region and making it available to the public. This would be the third regional PRTR in the world, and the first in a developing-country context. Since 2003, this initiative has moved forward throughout the region with designs of PRTRs in Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama underway.

The meeting to discuss future steps towards a regional PRTR was held in El Salvador on 6-8 December 2011 with PRTR technical focal points from Belize, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama attending. The PRTR technical focal points from Costa Rica participated via teleconference. Ms. Leyla Zelaya, coordinator of the Environmental Quality Department of CCAD, stated during the meeting that “all countries are now progressing to design national PRTRs, it is very important that all countries discuss and agree on how to harmonize all the designed features to include in a regional PRTR”.  The participants agreed on a list of 74 chemicals that will be reported by all countries to the regional PRTR, which was discussed according to the lists of pollutants that will be reported at national level in each country. In addition, focal points also decided on thresholds to report to the regional PRTR and discussed the online reporting format that CCAD will design for countries to report these pollutants.

Experts from Chile, Mexico and Spain also participated in the meeting. UNITAR provided technical support as the international executing agency for PRTR projects in Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama. The meeting was held with financial support from the Ministry of Environment of Spain.