The Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), consisting of 140 countries, took a landmark decision at its deliberations in Nairobi in February 2009. The council moved to start negotiations toward an international treaty on mercury that either bans or places very strict restrictions on the dangerous chemical.

UNEP’s unanimous decision may mean the beginning of the end for mercury, although the transition to either a no-mercury or low-mercury world will still take time.

UNEP has, for seven years, coordinated the intense scientific and policy debate on how best to deal with mercury, said the agency’s executive director and UN Under-Secretary, Achim Steiner. Now “the world’s environmental ministers, armed with the full facts and full choices, decided the time for talking was over – the time for action on this pollution is now.”

The Governing Council also was unanimous on the risk to human health. Mercury and its compounds are highly toxic to humans, especially to the nervous system at even relatively low levels of exposure. It is particularly harmful to the development of unborn children. It accumulates in humans and animals and can be concentrated throughout the food chain, notably in certain types of fish.

The EU has called for a ban to begin on mercury by 2011. UNEP’s main function is to promote international policy cooperation in the environmental field.