Project Summary
The proposed workshop, “Mercury as a Global Pollutant”, will provide a forum for sharing and
summarizing data, enhancing communication among researchers, managers and policymakers,
informing goals and mandates of the Superfund Research Program and the National Institutes
of Environmental Health Sciences, and synthesizing, interpreting and translating scientific
findings that relate to policy questions pertaining to mercury fate and transport and human
exposure and health effects. The workshop and production of the synthesis papers are optimally
timed to coincide with the implementation of the Minamata Convention which came into force in
2017 and has now been ratified by 129 countries. The Dartmouth Superfund Research Program
(SRP) Center, in collaboration with the Executive Committee (EC) of the 15th International
Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant (ICMGP) 2022, is convening a team of academic
and government scientists and policy makers to work together over a one year period to publish
a group of four synthesis papers related to mercury and its effects on environmental health and
human health, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere, and the global implications of climate
change on mercury fate and effects in the environment. The synthesis workshop will convene
these synthesis paper teams from the US and 18 other countries for a one day workshop to be
held in Cape Town South Africa prior to the start of the ICMGP 2022. The workshop will provide
the opportunity for synthesis teams to report out on their findings and receive feedback from
other mercury scientists, policy-makers, and stakeholders. Following the workshop, the
synthesis papers will be revised and submitted to the journal, Ambio, and 2-page summaries of
each paper will be produced for distribution at the 5th Conference of Parties of the Minamata
Convention. The workshop will be a forum for discussing the science needed to inform policy
decisions that are being made to implement the the Minamata Convention in order to reduce
global mercury pollution over the coming decades.