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On 8 December 2022, The French National Research
Agency (ANR), the Guadeloupe Administrative Region and the Martinique
Territorial Collectivity presented the six research projects retained from the
first chlordecone joint research call for proposals.
Among them was CHLOR2NOU,
a project coordinated by Genoscope (CEA-Jacob) and focused on the development
of new tools to monitor chlordecone and its transformation products.
On 8 December 2022, The French National Research Agency (ANR), the Guadeloupe Administrative Region and the Martinique Territorial Collectivity presented the six research projects retained from the first chlordecone joint research call for proposals launched in March. These projects will be a part of the strategic Chlordecone Plan IV developed to battle chlordecone pollution in the French Antilles (2021–2027). The objective of the call for proposals is to enable transversal research aimed at pursuing and strengthening the measures already underway to reduce human exposure to chlordecone in Guadeloupe and Martinique and furthermore deploying pertinent accompaniment measures.
The three entities behind the call for proposals will mobilize €5.53 million for research aimed at finding concrete solutions to chlordecone contamination and enriching knowledge on it by the 2025 end-date planned for the projects.
The call's international, multidisciplinary, scientific evaluation committee retained six of the 14 submitted projects. Among the retained projects was CHLOR2NOU - Chlordecone and its transformation products: new tools and knowledge, coordinated by Genoscope's Genomics Metabolics Mixed Research Unit. CHLOR2NOU is the call's largest consortium, comprising 18 partners, seven of which are based in the French West Indies.
CHLOR2NOU's objective is to develop new tools to monitor chlordecone and its transformation products, i.e., compounds resulting from chlordecone breakdown. That second aspect is important, as for many decades, chlordecone was thought to be non-degradable, a belief that had a major negative impact on the management of the pollutant. Aiming to prevent exposure to them, CHLOR2NOU intends to better detect these transformation products and increase knowledge on their formation, toxicity, ecotoxicity and prevalence. Thereafter, the project will try to determine realistic environmental and agronomic approaches able to favor the degradation of chlordecone. CHLORNOU will also look at the representation of the pesticide in Antilles society.
CEA is a French government-funded technological research organisation in four main areas: low-carbon energies, defense and security, information technologies and health technologies. A prominent player in the European Research Area, it is involved in setting up collaborative projects with many partners around the world.