Based on current trends, it seems safe to predict that the environment and human rights will appear prominently on the international agenda in the twenty-first century. There already exists broad awareness of the need to protect and preserve the environment and promote and protect human rights. The rise of environmental politics can only be understood within the context of the major changes in the global environment resulting from the explosive growth of population and economic activity in the latter half of the twentieth century. Economic, demographic, and environmental macrotrends do not distinguish between rich and poor countries. But these macrotrends do describe the gross physical changes driving environmental politics.

Global environmental politics has entered a new stage in which the political stakes for industrialized and developing countries alike have increased. As the costs of environmental degradation to present and future generations become clearer, the costs of global environmental and resource conservation are also rising for all states. Meanwhile, the linkages among global environmental, economic, and security issues are becoming increasingly apparent. Although awareness of some of those linkages is helping to make some economic and security institutions more sensitive to environmental needs, others could reduce government or even public support for global cooperation on the environment.

The international dimension of environmentalism has become more prominent because of the identification of genuinely global problems; such as global warming and ozone depletion and only global cooperation can hope to solve these problems. In accordance with the original intentions of the six founding states, the European Union has developed into a supranational government, which is in the process of increasing its membership, deepening its democratic structure and strengthening its power. In the case of environment, European Union is a unique international organisation because it is the only one “with the power to agree environmental policies binding on its members”. The ceding of sovereignty by member states means that legislation emanating from the Council of Ministers does not have to be ratified by national legislatures although scrutiny does take place before the decision is made. The powers exercised by the European Union are not, however, equivalent to those of a nation state. Member States have the legal right to secede and even while remaining members, they are relied on to implement and enforce directives. Despite these limitations, the European Union has had a significant impact on environmental policies in its member states. Almost 300 items of environmental legislation have been adopted since 1957 and the scope of these has gradually increased.

Perhaps the greatest threat to the environment and global ecosystem is the increasing and alarming amounts of hazardous wastes, which are released into the air, land, and water. Hazardous substances include any substance that poses a threat to human health or to the environment.

Efforts to save the earth from environmental pollution must necessarily involve the struggle to stop the release of hazardous substances into the soil, air and water. Industries often have an incentive to pollute as long as they do not have to pay the real, or external, costs. Current public policies are often shortsighted, allowing companies to reap high profits at the expense of public health and future generations, which will be forced to bear the real costs of global environmental destruction. The damage that is being inflicted on the earth goes unseen for only a short period. When its effects appear, they are often sudden, but devastating to humans, animals, plants and the earth’s ecosystems. In other words, when toxic wastes are produced, almost all of them will eventually end up in the earth, air, or water. Attempts to incinerate them often produces new chemicals, whose effects are unknown. Companies, under current policies, have weighty incentives to produce toxics and pollute, because it increases their short-term profits.

As countries liberalize their economies to allow western global companies to bring in capital and technology, they should be aware of the record of companies in the production and disposal of hazardous wastes. The byproducts of economic and technological growth – the production of toxic chemicals and other wastes and their introduction into the air, water and soil- cause cumulative stresses on the physical environment that threaten human health, habitats, and economic well-being. The costs and risks of these activities to future generations will be much higher than they are to the world’s current population. It is injustice to destroy the basis of existence for future generations.

Turkish Cypriot People is one of the living witnesses of the environmental catastrophe caused by the debris resulting from the mining activities of an American Company. Lefke region was one of the rare locations in Cyprus to be a generous host for both agricultural and heavy industrial activities for long years. It was the region where best quality citrus was grown and where agriculture or rural industries attracting population from the other regions of the island. But the mining industry changed the economic, physical and cultural development of the region. The economic activity reached to its highest level, towards the middle of the century, by the steadily growing mining and smelting activities of a foreign firm called as “Cyprus Mines Corporation”.

After CMC left the Island, it left behind piles of tailing deposits exposed to the environment, resulting in substantial contamination of surrounding soils and the seashore. Because of the million tons of mining waste concentrated around the abandoned mines, the facility created thread for the whole Lefke Area. The existence of the hazardous wastes are imposing serious constrains on possible investment alternatives on scarce land resources of Lefke as well as of the whole country.

In 1970, a Turkish agricultural engineer from Lefke brought a lawsuit against CMC, after carrying out some experiments himself. His assertion was about the negative effects of the ore dust on the productivity and the crop quality of citrus trees.

A special committee was appointed by the court to study the effects of the ore dust on crop production in the Lefke Area. The Report of this Committee stated that ‘Dust, presumable ore dust, was observed on the leaves of trees at all sites but it was more pronounced in orchards nearer the ponds and the open cast mines.’

This was proving the existence of air pollution. The collection and analysis of these dust samples, then, showed that 30% of its contents were iron pyrites and 0.5-1.2% were copper. Furthermore, the results of the analysis of the water drained into the Marathassa riverbed was described to be ‘unsuitable for irrigation purposes’ and ‘contamination resulting from the operations of the Cyprus Mining Corporation’. This was a proof for water pollution and at the same time a potential cause for land pollution. Reduced productivity of the citrus orchards was defined in this report as follows: ‘With regard to production it has been visually estimated that the number of fruit per tree of both Valencia and Jaffa was less than half the number produced by trees of similar and undersized fruit of Valencia oranges was higher than that on normal trees in other areas.’

This special event was really the formal registration of the pollution problem of the Lefke Area and at the same time the announcement of the polluter.

The pollution problem was also existing before the abandonment, but the situation was much more different then because the existence of an economic activity was creating positive social and economic benefits besides the pollution costs; but since then only the costs are present without any counter benefits. In other words, negative externality of the industrial activity of mining could somehow be outweighed by the positive externality of the continuing industrial facility. What is more, the polluter, i.e. the externality generator CMC, the proprietor of the industrial facility and the site, was present then, however it is no more legally clear whether it is existing nowadays.

FIGURE 6...

The drinking water wells, located very close to this reservoir are obviously creating a thread for the whole Lefke Area. This thread is of course, the result of a wrong decision about the location of the Reservoir; and this extra pollution thread (as an additional negative externality to the already inherited ones from the older generations) is the fault of the present generation. Precautions have been taken against this thread, by digging new drinking water wells above the water level of the reservoir and meantime the water level in the reservoir is not allowed to get higher than the secure level. In other words, a wrong decision about the location of the reservoir has resulted in an idle investment. But had there been no piles of tailing deposits, the investment may not have been a total loss for the whole country.

The analytical data for soil sample 2A showed high concentrations of Arsenic and Selenium. The analysis showed concentrations of Arsenic at 15.8 mg/L and Selenium at 6.39 mg/L, which are above the MCL of 5.00 mg/L and 1.00 mg/L respectively. The analytical data for soil samples 1A and 3A showed concentrations below the MCL. This was not a surprise since these samples were taken from the surface and the materials had been exposed to the environment since 1974.

Arsenic is a teratogen and carcinogen that can produce fatal death and malformation in animals. It is also a carcinogenic in humans. Many marine organisms and fish in the sea exhibit high concentrations of Arsenic. Some species, such as lobsters, have as much as 100 parts per million.

Levels of Arsenic are normally high near copper smelting operations due to the mineralization and contamination. In general, Arsenic may be absorbed by ingestion, inhalation ore through permeation of skin or mucous membranes. Cells may take up Arsenic through an active transport system, normally used in phosphate transport. Arsenic’s toxicity differs greatly among species, although all appear to cause similar sings of poisoning.

Selenium is also very dangerous to human health. High levels of exposure cause pallor, nervousness, depression, gastro-intestinal disturbances and dermatitis. This means that consumption of agricultural products from the areas with high Selenium can cause harmful effects in humans and animals.