Cablegate: Philippines Position On Mercury Issues for October 2008

VZCZCXRO2626
OO RUEHCHI RUEHFK RUEHHM RUEHKSO RUEHNAG RUEHPB
DE RUEHML #1519 1770909
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 250909Z JUN 08
FM AMEMBASSY MANILA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1091
RUEHZU/ASIAN PACIFIC ECONOMIC COOPERATION

UNCLAS MANILA 001519

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EAP/MTS, OES/ENV HODAYAH FINMAN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: AORC EAGR ECON ETRD SENV RP
SUBJECT: PHILIPPINES POSITION ON MERCURY ISSUES FOR OCTOBER 2008
UNEP WORKING GROUP

REF: STATE 63943

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

1. Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources
(DENR) officials told Econ staff that the Philippine government has
two United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)-sponsored projects
to address mercury issues: a study for small-scale gold mines and
the Mercury Inventory Toolkit, designed to set baseline data. A
Philippine inter-agency and NGO committee will meet in July 2008 to
discuss the findings of the mercury inventory project. DENR
officials promised that they will discuss the questions that we
posed in our meeting to reach a consensus on their positions, which
will be reported septel.

2. The Philippines is not a member of the UNEP Ad-Hoc Open Ended
Working Group, but will most likely attend the upcoming October 2008
meeting.

MEMMOTT#

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