He promised to write clarifying the position. When he did so, he put a copy of his letter in the Commons library. In so doing, he effectively registered it as a public document for all interested parties.

The gist of the letter was that the convention contains measures to ensure compliance. States which are party to the convention can restrict or suspend another signatory state’s rights and privileges if it fails to comply. In cases of serious concern, the Conference of State Parties – the “parliament” of parties that have ratified the treaty – may recommend collective measures to redress the situation. These may take a number of forms, but in cases of particular gravity the conference may bring the issue to the attention of the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council. The UN Special Commission on Iraq, Oppenheim said, demonstrated the scope of the actions that are open to the UN.

Oppenheim went on to say: “If any inspection team believed that it was being provided with incomplete or incorrect information, then under the convention the inspectors can request clarification in connection with any ambiguities, which the inspected state is obliged to provide.” The convention, he said, can be enforced effectively and in an even-handed way.

IF THE OPPOSITION wants a topic with which to embarrass the government on a vote of confidence, then it could choose no more contentious issue than the topic of fishing. At the request of the Overseas Development Agency, Martin Angel, director of the Southampton Oceanography Centre, has prepared a powerful report Biodiversity of the Deep Ocean. Come what may, it is time politicians gave their full attention to the serious problems surrounding transmigratory fish and their habits.

Angel asserts that only by improving our monitoring of marine species and their habitats will we be able to assess how their status is evolving in the face of natural fluctuations and anthropogenic change. In particular, he says, we need more taxonomic research and to make marine systematics more readily available outside the main research institutes in the developed countries. And he points to the importance of developing global databases and inventories of marine species and their habitats. Clearly there is a need for rational science-based management policies.

Angel thinks that the Biodiversity Convention tends to focus attention on species-rich ecosystems and to be concerned primarily with ownership. He warns that this means that the most important ecosystems in global processes may not be receiving adequate protection. And while climate change tends to be less of a problem in the deep ocean than on land or in inshore waters, things could be quite different, Angel suggests, if there were major readjustments to the regular pattern of ocean circulation caused through, say, the effects of changes in temperature on its salinity (the thermohaline circulation).

Recently Ian Anderson reported on the first steps towards regulating the “bioprospecting industry” (“Oceans plundered in the name of medicine”, This Week, 25 November 1995). Signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity are now working with the UN Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) secretariat to sort out the laws governing the biological resources on the seafloor. John Gummer, the Secretary of State for the Environment, tells me that the Department of the Environment supports such cooperation and is looking into how this might help the conservation and management of genetic resources under national jurisdiction.

That’s all to the good – as long as the politicians eschew the temptation to make complex issues into a political football. Come November, they must direct their minds to addressing what Britain’s position should be at the Third Meeting to UNCLOS and the Biodiversity Convention, scheduled for Buenos Aires, next November.

Prime Minister John Major seemed to pull the idea of the Darwin Initiative out of a hat in something of a hurry at the end of the Rio conference back in 1992. It turned out to be Britain’s main proposal for protecting the species of the planet and was widely welcomed. Species 2000 is a project, set up by the International Union of Biological Sciences in 1994, to create a biological network that links master databases of all known species of plants, animals, fungi and microbes. It will play a major part in implementing the CBD.

Britain has increased its funding for the Darwin project from an initial £1 million in 1993/94 to £3 million on a continuing rolling basis from the current financial year. So far, £900 000 has been allocated to 86 projects in some 50 developing countries, involving about 60 British institutions and almost a thousand participants from developing countries.

Rather than denounce this support as a measly “trickle” compared to ecological world need and the dreams of the Rio Earth Summit, as some conservation groups and others have, we should be using it to build on the Darwin project. All readers who feel strongly about any of the biodiversity problems that face us should put this to their local MP. Perhaps at the same time they should quiz him or her on what they know about the Paris meeting.

TIM EGGAR, the Department of Trade and Industry minister who chairs the Abandonment Policy Review Committee, tells me he anticipates that around two-thirds of off shore oil installations now located on Britain’s continental shelf will eventually be removed in their entirety, and in most cases will be brought onshore for disposal. As from 1 January 1998, in line with the guidelines from the International Maritime Organization, no installation will be placed on the continental shelf unless its design and construction are such that it can be removed when its usefulness is up. The government will decide on all abandonments, says Eggar, on a case by case basis in line with our international obligations.

I suggest that, with all good grace, Shell should now declare that regardless of 1998, all companies should voluntarily comply with the IMO edict forthwith. As this magazine has pointed out (Editorial, 1 July), Shell has long used its green image to boost its corporate reputation and its sales. The Brent Spar debacle dented all that. Can Shell rescue the situation?

Now, I am one of the least alarmist people in Westminster – but I sense a
matter of growing concern among MPs. I shall call it Applejuicegate. Angry
questions have been asked in the House of Commons on the safety of apple
juice, for it can contain very small quantities of patulin, and, as the
headlines indicated, patulin is a potential carcinogen. But as the Royal
Society of Chemistry emphasised, we are all in our daily lives surrounded by
many chemicals that occur naturally and which are potential carcinogens.

Soames told the House of Commons that the best advice from the best
toxicological scientists in Britain coincided with the government’s attitude
– and, he boomed, ‘we do not do anything unless the advice is both
scientific and substantiated. We should not forget that apple juice is a
useful source of vitamin C, and no good public purpose whatever is served by
creating quite unnecessary public alarm and confusion.’

According to David Wilson, of the Department of Plant Pathology in the
University of Georgia, patulin should be considered a potentially dangerous
mycotoxin since it is toxic and has been implicated as carcinogen. Patulin
causes mutations in yeast. But what complicates the issue is that what is
considered to be a carcinogen in the US is not always considered to be so
elsewhere. Whether or not the existing WHO standard safety level – currently
50 parts per billion – is correct is a question which in the Royal Society
of Chemistry’s view should be discussed further with government and outside.

Soames reminded MPs that when Adam ate the apple he made a career decision.

* * *

Those of us who were spotty as children and even more so as teenagers
understand only too well the stigma and pain that acne can bring to the
young. Dermatology has always been considered something of a Cinderella
discipline but I was horrified to learn from John Hunter, who is professor
of dermatology at the University of Edinburgh, that of £855
000 available for research in his department between 1988 and 1992 the
government provided only 30 per cent of it. Of the rest, Pounds Sterling
166 000 came from industry and £434 000 from the charities.

I raised the matter in the House of Commons last month and asked what
support the government was now giving to psoriasis and acne and other
related dermatological research. Robert Jackson the junior science minister
replied, saying that the government supports research into skin disease
through the Medical Research Council. He claimed that between 1991 and 1992
the council spent £2.3 million on research directly relevant
to psoriasis and other dermatological disorders. The money would of course
be spread widely.

A worrying problem for dermatology concerns the employment of short-term
research staff. Hunter tells me that a bottleneck is created because there
are so few permanent scientific posts open to research workers in the
speciality. The moment they obtain their higher degrees, most go to work in
other areas of medical research. Dermatology desperately needs more senior
scientific posts to be funded on a permanent basis. It will be interesting
to see if plans proposed in the White Paper on science help to ease the
friction that such bottlenecks create.

Based on the work of the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel of
the UN Environment Programme, the Commission says that production and consumption
of CFCs, other fully halogenated CFCs, halons, carbon tetrachloride and
1,1,1-trichloroethane should be cut by 85 per cent by 31 December 1993,
and that the Community should phase out the use of all depleting substances
by 31 December 1995.

* * *

Rightly the media gave much space to the newly published map of atmospheric
pollution over northern Europe and its inherent warning of possible destruction
of the ozone layer over the region. The map shows that levels of the main
ozone-depleting chemical, chlorine monoxide, are high over Scotland, Scandinavia
and Russia, with the highest concentration over the Shetland Islands.

One of the saltier scientists with whom I talked about the map’s revelations
put it nicely into perspective: ‘If anyone spent March and April in the
nude in Scotland they would be far safer than if they sunbathed on one day
at high noon in Malta.’

* * *

That is the view that I now take for the short term. Over the medium
and long term it might be a different story. In general, I am concerned
about the years 2000, 2005 and 2010, and many parliamentarians join me in
this. The chief danger may not be to human beings but to crops, especially
seedlings.

* * *

Peter Ayres and his colleagues in the Institute of Biological Sciences
at the University of Lancaster tell me they are currently investigating
the susceptibility of Britain’s crop varieties – of pea, barley and wheat
– and of some wide-ranging arctic-alpine species to ultraviolet B radiation.
Their work, they say, is well advanced. As of November, they intend to move
the crop work into the field where they will supplement natural light with
UV from artificial sources. They hope to be able to do part of this work
in collaboration with David Royle of the Long Ashton Research Station.

* * *

Tony Baldry, minister of energy, set out the government’s position on
problems concerning the ozone layer in response to my adjournment debate
in the House of Commons last month. Among much else, he commented that:
‘The study of UVB impacts on plants and ecosystems is particularly difficult,
because laboratory results are not easily extrapolated to the real world.’
It will be interesting to see what emerges from the research being undertaken
at the University of Lancaster and elsewhere.

* * *

The Natural Environment Research Council plans to include UVB studies
of higher plants in its Terrestrial Initiative in Global Environmental Research
programme. The organisers of TIGER want to include studies of the effects
of long-term field irradiation on whole plant communities. They believe
that such an approach, including as it would the complete range of abiotic
and biotic interactions, has not been attempted before. And field studies,
they say, must be complemented by studies in controlled environments. ‘These
are essential for defining the dose-response relationships of representative
species, and for studying their physiological/biochemical responses to UV
�����徱���پ��Dz�.’

* * *

Any reader who wants to know about that ozone debate in the House of
Commons should purchase a copy of Hansard for 4 March, or write to me for
a copy.