BRIDGETOWN, Mar 22 1994 (IPS) - ''Environmental racism'' -- that is the label which Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are attaching to the dumping of waste in the region by industrialised countries.

And the NGOs say they are determined to bring this issue out in the open during the upcoming U.N. Global Conference on Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) with the hope of calling a halt to the undesirable situation.

''We know that the so-called North wants to dump its rubbish in the South,'' says Dr. Pauulu Kamarakafego, Conference Coordinator of the NGO island forum.

''And where is the rubbish piled? What kind of people live around these places? Case in point, you can look in the U.S. and see the places where predominantly black people live or people of colour live and they will dump the rubbish there,'' he adds.

Kamarakafego says the whole issue of environmental racism is becoming more blatant despite growing concern with the destruction of the environment.

He says it can be found on the shelves of shops and in warehouses in developing countries.

Products outlawed in other parts of the world because of chemicals which have been found to deplete the ozone layer can be purchased in the very countries where the effects are more immediate and irreversible,'' says Kamarakafego.

Insecticides and chemicals that have been proven to contribute to the extinction of forms of animal life or have been linked to the incidence of cancer are sold on the open market.

Pharmaceutical firms, with saving lives as their stated purpose and a suspected profit motive as their unpublished goal, find markets in developing countries for medicines which have been outlawed or have not received approval in more affluent nations, he added.

The NGO official says there is a growing concern among the group that cruise ships plying the waters of the Caribbean are dumping their waste into the sea, rather than making use of proper disposal facilities.

And at least one regional government has warned that it is prepared to impose stiffer penalties on ships found dumping their waste at sea.

The government of The Bahamas is planning to take legislation to parliament to up the fine for ships violating its anti-dumping laws from 1,000 dollars to one million dollars.

''The environment of The Bahamas, of the Caribbean is fundamental ... absolutely fundamental and I don't think we need to be frightened or unduly concerned that those who use our beautiful waters will not cause us problems in the future,'' Prime Minister, Hubert Ingraham told a meeting of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) heads of governments earlier this month.

''We don't think we can find all (ships), but we think that the opportunity exists to find some, and who we find, that entity will be able to carry the message to the remainder,''he added.

But Kamarakafego says the NGOs are also concerned that not all types of environmental racism are intentional, but sometimes flow from ignorance that the comforts enjoyed by the more affluent nations can have disastrous effects on the poor nations.

Currently, some island nations are literally being slowly swallowed by the sea around them as global warming caused by the unbridled abuse of the environment brings rising sea levels, says Kamarakafego.

''...Time may very soon prove to be the scarcest of all commodities in small island developing states. We simply do not know how much time we have left before our worst fears about global warming and sea level rise might be realised,'' says Robert Leirop, a U.N. representative.

Leirop says he is hoping that concrete action and plans on halting the environmental destruction of developing nations will emerge from the conference to be held from April 25 to May 6 in Barbados.

''Small island developing states are already drowning, figuratively speaking, in documents, proposals, consultants and technical experts that produce little of long-term benefit, but which strain our capacity to absorb and effectively utilise the many volumes of papers produced while also consuming the scarce time of our development and planning officials,'' says Leirop. (end/ips/en/et/cb/94)

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