France banned it because it was too dangerous. Yet, this pesticide continued to be used in the French West Indies.
Here is why kepone has become a major environmental and health scandal.
Here is why kepone has become a major environmental and health scandal.
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00:00According to the type of soil, the molecule can remain for several decades or even centuries.
00:17As long as we have not found, as long as we have not put in place effective methods of depollution,
00:27there is a risk of problems.
00:36People really feel like they are left to their own devices.
00:40And so there is a very strong demand for justice, for reparation.
00:57We had suspicions about the toxicity of chlordecone for human beings from the 1960s.
01:07These were tests carried out by the plant and the company that made chlordecone, Allied Chemicals.
01:14In 1975, in this factory in Hopewell, there was an incident where the workers who made chlordecone
01:23themselves were exposed to dangers.
01:25They manifested quite serious kidney problems, weight loss, chest pain.
01:33And there we had an experimental verification of the toxicity of chlordecone for human beings.
01:53There are areas, we know that they are contaminated, but as we are very professional,
02:15we know that when people make a transition, there are consequences.
02:20We are going to suffer for 700 years a poisoning for the current and future generations.
02:50So our lands, our waters, our fauna and flora, as well as our food chain, are impacted.
03:08The state of scientific knowledge, which is now ours, allows us to observe the presence of chlordecone in the human body.
03:15But it does not allow us to certify that this presence has an effect on human health.
03:20However, we presume the link with premature births, brain development delays and other pathologies.
03:29But there is no scientific evidence to support this.
04:16I was hijacked. I was destroyed.
04:20We used chlordecone to experiment with several products.
04:25The state must take its share of responsibility in this pollution and must move forward in the path of repair and projects.
04:33Collective repair first.
04:35This is the meaning of the action plan put in place for 10 years for scientific research,
04:41prevention, control and depollution with real progress being made.
05:11Today, we have the impression that regardless of the polluters, whether it is the state, whether it is certain elected officials,
05:29whether it is the people of the Bequia caste, whether it is commercial groups,
05:35no one is worried, no one is pursued.
05:38And the only ones who are worried are those who will make the public opinion of Martinique know the urgency to react so that the damage that has been caused is repaired.
05:51The problem of chlordecone is ultimately a symbol of the way we have had to inhabit the earth in the Andes,
06:09from monoculture to exportation, with the sole purpose of accumulating profits as quickly as possible,
06:16without worrying about the environment, without worrying about public health in the long term.
06:21And I think we can have a very technical answer to chlordecone, but if we do not also change our way of relating to the earth,
06:32we may later find ourselves facing similar problems.