Pacific islands urged to consider sunscreen ban

Transcript

The Hawaii ban follows research showing the chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate present in many sunscreens can kill developing coral.

Craig Downs of the Haereticus Environmental Laboratory in the US says their laboratory tests have shown the chemicals damage the DNA of the living organisms, cause deformities and reduce their resilience to major climatic events.

"The oxybenzone kind of acts like estrogen and it causes the coral to inappropriately encase itself in its own coral skeleton. Basically it puts itself in its own coffin."

Craig Downs says miniscule amounts of the offending sunscreen in the water can cause damage.

"I won't let my children go into an outdoor public swimming pool because I know the levels of these sunscreen chemicals in the swimming pool and how dangerous they are just to humans."

Leleuvia Resort on a small island in Fiji's east brought in a ban this month after studying the research.

The resort's manager Colin Philp says recent cyclones have contributed to huge dead patches of coral on the nearby reef but it's bouncing back after a marine reserve was put in place six years ago.

He says the sunscreen ban is an added protection for the reef.

"Tourists come to Fiji because of our pristine marine environment so if we're not doing as much as we can to protect that then we're not protecting our tourism future."

The Consumer Healthcare Products Association in the US says the Hawaiian ban is based on bad science and creates false hope for reefs avoiding the real causes of coral decline.

"This irresponsible action will make it more difficult for families to protect themselves against the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays, and it is contrary to the many concerns expressed by Hawaii's medical doctors, dermatologists, and public health experts."

Colin Philp says guests to his Fiji resort are offered a locally made natural sunscreen product and encouraged to wear long sleeved sun protection shirts.

"The feedback has been incredible. You just need to look at our Facebook page and see the amount of sharing and likes and comment. We're getting huge support for this ban."

Emma Newland of the Pacific's scientific agency SPC says the ban's a good idea but she says for now there are more pressing problems to deal with.

"I guess for us the tourists numbers aren't so big but we have more pressing issues I think more around agricultural runoff, deforestation and human and animal waste streams that are ultimately affecting our coral reefs."

Craig Downs says while there's been some pushback major sunscreen producers are listening and starting to remove the harmful chemicals from their products.

And he says smaller producers of effective mineral-based sunscreens are taking off.

"We're recommending just cover up with a shirt, with a good UPF sunscreen shirt. If you do that you're reducing your sunscreen pollution load by over 50 percent."

The scientist says islands in the Pacific have the chance to avert damage caused to coral reefs at tourism hotspots round the world.

This is Sally Round.