LAUSR

Chlordecone is an organochlorine insecticide extensively used in the French Caribbean (FC), Guadeloupe and Martinique, from 1972 to 1993. This pesticide, which was applied on banana plantations to control banana weevil, undergoes an extremely slow degradation in the environment and is still present in soils where it was applied. It was only in 1999 that French health and environmental authorities became aware of the extent of the pollution due to chlordecone. In addition to soils, it was detected in rivers and groundwaters as well as in coastal ecosystems, and was found to contaminate the terrestrial and aquatic food chains. From that date, the consequences of long-term environmental contamination by chlordecone on human and ecosystem health were considered of major concern. Chlordecone toxicological studies performed in rodents demonstrated evidence of kidney lesions, hepatotoxicity, neurotoxicity, reprotoxicity, developmental toxicity, and carcinogenicity. Chlordecone is also an endocrine-disrupting chemical due to its estrogenic properties both in vitro and in vivo. Epidemiological studies have recently shown that the exposure to chlordecone is associated with the occurrence of adverse health events including prostate cancer. Since early 2000s, surveys conducted in the French Caribbean have confirmed that in contaminated areas, soils, rivers, spring and groundwaters, aquatic biota, and crops were polluted by chlordecone. This situation became a major concern for FC citizens and for French health authorities, giving rise, among other initiatives, to several research programs encouraged and founded in the frame of the PNAC (national action plan chlordecone) supported by the French Government which started in 2008 through 3 successive plans (PNAC 1 2008-2010, PNAC 2 2011-2013, and PNAC 3 2014-2020). These programs aimed at filling gaps and providing data on the occurrence of chlordecone in environmental matrices, on its carry over and transfer in the food chain, on human exposure as well as its social factors, and on the (eco-)toxicological and health effects of chlordecone. A scientific conference on chlordecone followed by public restitution days were held in Martinique and in Guadeloupe from October 16 to 19, 2018. During the conference, which gathered more than 200 scientists and experts, recent advances in different scientific fields of research dealing with environmental issues, plant and animal production sectors, human health concerns, humanities, and social sciences were presented. The conference aimed at fostering interactions and synergies between scientific disciplines around the “one Health” concept which promotes integrated and systemic approaches of human and ecosystem health. The goal was to present and discuss possible solutions to reduce the contamination of ecosystems and human populations’ exposure. Improving the knowledge of chlordecone contamination in soils and its migration to waterbodies remains necessary before promoting measures to reduce its dispersion at the catchment scale. Field observations, experimental studies, and modelling approaches addressing the dispersion of chlordecone have been conducted in instrumented sites dedicated to pesticides in both Guadeloupe and Martinique (OPALE observatory). These catchments are representative of contaminated areas with a significant proportion of land Responsibility Editor: Philippe Garrigues