An-Najah Staff

Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are a set of chemicals that are toxic, persist in the  environment for long periods of time, and biomagnify as they move up through the food  chain. POPs have been linked to adverse effects on human health and animals, such as cancer,  damage to the nervous, reproductive disorders, and disruption of the immune system. Because  they circulate globally via the atmosphere, oceans, and other pathways. POPs released in one  part of the world can travel to regions far from their source of origin (Sandra et al. 2006).    With mounting evidence, indicating the long-range transport potential of these substances  to regions where they have never been used or produced and the consequent threats they pose  to the environment, the international community has called for urgent global actions to reduce  and eliminate their release into the environment (Burger et al., 2001). Organochlorines  (OCs), represent an important group of POPs which have caused worldwide concern as toxic  environmental contaminants (Law et al. 2003, Covacia et al., 2005) and (Wurl and Obbard,  2005).  The lipophilic nature, hydrophobicity and low chemical and biological degradation rates  of organochlorine pesticides have led to their accumulation in biological tissues and the  subsequent magnification of concentrations in organisms, progressing through to the food  chain (Tanabe, 2002). Specifically, one of the key environmental concerns, regarding some  POPs, is their occurrence in polar regions, at surprisingly high levels.