Environment ministers must crack down on mercury poisoning to protect the health of hundreds of millions of people worldwide, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Sunday. "A clear and unequivocal vision of a low mercury future needs to be set," UNEP head Achim Steiner said on the eve of a Feb. 16-20 meeting in Nairobi of environment ministers who will consider a new strategy to limit mercury. "Inaction on the global mercury challenge is no longer an option." Ministers "can take a landmark decision to lift a global health threat from the lives of hundreds of millions of people" by agreeing a new strategy to tackle mercury after seven years of talks, he wrote in a statement quoted by Reuters. About 6,000 tonnes of mercury -- a heavy metal known for more than a century to damage the human nervous system -- enter the environment every year. Mercury's other effects include liver damage, memory loss or disturbances to vision.
