Subject:           Advance notification of the upcoming Sound
Management of Chemicals

Working Group Public Meeting and Workshop, April 2007, Monterrey, Mexico

 

Dear Sir or Madam:

 

The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) and
its Sound Management of Chemicals (SMOC) Working Group appreciates your
interest in our work and would like to give you advanced notice of a
proposed public session and workshop to be held this coming spring in
Monterrey, Mexico. 

 

The SMOC Working Group will present for discussion, four concept areas
for future work based on the Strategy to 2020 under the Puebla Priority
Areas. These concept areas will identify sound management of chemicals
related issues of mutual concern and describe actions proposed under the
CEC. In our renewed mandate, we are looking at programs to be managed
tri-laterally under the CEC, bilaterally between governments, or
undertaken collaboratively with stakeholders, including NGOs, industry
and academia. We will also be considering how stakeholders can play an
enhanced participatory role.  SMOC will be seeking input regarding
priorities that could feed directly into the concept areas towards
meeting the goals of sound trilateral chemicals management under the
CEC’s SMOC program.

 

The four proposed concept areas are as follows:

1.	Develop and implement a sustainable regional approach to monitoring,
including biomonitoring; this area will include work under the
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Standing Committee with the
objective to enhance North American monitoring capacity, with an
emphasis on  Mexico;  

2.	Establish a foundation for chemicals management in North America;
this area seeks to increase comparability of chemical management tools
across North America, with a special emphasis on assisting Mexico to
build their capacity in the sound management of chemicals at the
national level.  Work under this area may include increasing the
comparability of chemical management protocols between the three
countries, and alignment with similar global initiatives;  

3.	Reduce the risk from chemicals of concern to North America; the
objective of this area is to reduce and/or eliminate the risks from
chemicals of concern to the people and environment of North America. 
This area will include chemical specific work such as work currently
being undertaken through the North American Regional Action Plans, and
should include work on chemicals or groups of chemicals of emerging
concern as determined by governments and/or stakeholders; and 

4.	Improve environmental performance of sectors; the objective of this
area is to reduce the risks from toxic chemicals in North America by
working strategically with key industrial sectors.  This area may
include work on greening design and supply chains, pollution prevention
and recycling in sectors of tri-lateral concern.

 

A document describing each proposed concept area and criteria to select
projects within each proposed concept area will be available on the CEC
website by the end of February.

 

The final document with our new strategy for realizing the sound
management of chemicals in North America, Strategy to 202 under the
Puebla Priority Areas, can be found on the CEC website at   HYPERLINK
"http://www.cec.org/pubs_docs/documents/index.cfm?varlan=english&ID=2048
_" 
http://www.cec.org/pubs_docs/documents/index.cfm?varlan=english&ID=2048
. The document outlines how planned strategies for catalyzing
cooperation might assist SMOC goals; includes a description of
opportunities for horizontal integration with other work within the CEC;
and describes the future direction of the SMOC initiative.  

 

We look forward to your considered input to this initiative. Please do
not hesitate to contact myself or Erika Hercules if you have any
questions or concerns. 

 

Yours sincerely,                 
                                    
    

                                    
            

 

Luke Trip

Sound Management of Chemicals

Program Manager

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