21
Figure 2: Progress towards eliminating the use of lead gunshot
in wetlands world-wide. Partial bans include situations where some
progress has been made but a complete national ban has yet to be
achieved. Data from Fawcett and van Vessem (1995), Kuivenhoven and
Van Vessem (1997), Beintema (2004), and AEWA (2015).
CONCLUSIONS
As with many other pollutants, the regulation of lead in the
environment has typically lagged (many) decades after the
recognition of its impacts, whether to the health of humans or
wildlife. Indeed, leaded paint and leaded petrol remains in use
in some countries over a century after the recognition of the
toxicity of the former and c. 80 years after the appreciation of
TEL toxicity. Exposure to lead from multiple sources continues
despite recognition of the problem at the highest levels.
The Governing Council of the United Nations Environment
Programme adopted a decision in 2003 in which it:
“ 6. Appeals toGovernments, intergovernmental organizations,
non-governmental organizations and civil society to
participate actively in assisting national Governments in their
efforts to prevent and phase out sources of human exposure to
lead, in particular the use of lead in gasoline, and to strengthen
monitoring and surveillance efforts as well as treatment of
lead poisoning, by making available information, technical
assistance, capacity-building, and funding to developing
countries and countries with economies in transition.”
(UNEP 2003)
The development of regulations to address pollution that has
health or environmental impacts, especially when industrially-
derived, has always been problematic. This has typically led to
‘late lessons from early warnings’ as explored in detail by EEA
(2001, 2013).
Development and acceptance of better, risk-reducing,
regulations typically face two impediments to change: the
opposition of vested interests (typically economic and/or
political, as described by Michaels (2008) and Oreskes and
Conway (2010)), and a reluctance to accept the need for change
by stakeholders or wider society – often resulting in the failure of
voluntary approaches to encourage change.
The role of economic interests in slowing the development and
implementation of better regulation has been documented in
many of the sources given in this paper but, perhaps typically,
Wilson and Horrocks (2008) gives a detailed assessment of the
multiple factors which long-delayed the removal of lead from
New Zealand’s petrol.
In some situations, public can readily embrace the need for
better regulation. Thus Wilson (1983) documents the campaign
to remove lead from petrol in the UK which, in 1983, had a
massive cross-section of British civil society aligned against
the government, the petroleum and lead industries, and car
manufacturers. Yet in other situations, such as the encouraged
voluntary phase-outs of lead fishing weights in the 1980s and
of lead gunshot over wetlands in the 1990s, stakeholders have
resisted change. Such response has an extensive sociological
literature, especially in the context of climate change denialism
(e.g. McCright and Dunlap 2011, Washington and Cook 2011).
Cromie et al. (2015) reviews the issue further in the context of the
continuing high levels of non-compliance with UK lead gunshot
regulations.
Several common themes emerge from the history of removal
of lead in petrol (Table 3). Many types of argument used by
industrial advocates of leaded petrol in the 1960s and 1970s
are not dissimilar to those currently adopted today against the
change away from toxic lead ammunition.
Regulation of some sources of lead poisoning