Jindřich Petrlík (born 19 November 1961 Teplice) is a Czech scientist and environmentalist. He is a co-founder and board member of the Czech NGO Arnika, program manager of its Toxics and Waste Programme.

Life

Petrlík was born on 19 November 1961 Teplice, Czechoslovakia. He grew up in Bílina. He studied physical geography at the Faculty of

Natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

s of the Masaryk University in

Brno Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...

Activity in the civil society organizations

In 1979 he founded civil society initiative called Team Bořena, an informal association of students focused on archaeology, history and environmental protection. In September 1989, he founded Děti Země (Children of the Earth) with a group of other activists in Prague as an independent civic initiative for the environmental protection. On 29 September 2001, together with five other former members of the Children of the Earth, he laid the foundations of the new NGO Arnika. He chaired Děti Země in 1993–2001 and Arnika in 2004–2007 and 2011–2018.

Professional career

Before anchoring in the non-profit sector he worked as a scientist, civil servant and journalist. In 2004, he became the director of the Arnika - Toxics and Waste Programme. In the Arnika Association and the IPEN network, he focused on the monitoring of

dioxins Dioxin may refer to: * 1,2-Dioxin or 1,4-Dioxin, two unsaturated heterocyclic 6-membered rings where two carbon atoms have been replaced by oxygen atoms, giving the molecular formula C4H4O2 *Dibenzo-1,4-dioxin, the parent compound also known as ...

and other persistent organic pollutants and the assessment of environmental contamination by these substances in exposed locations. He also tracked brominated flame retardants and dioxins in toys and other consumer goods.

International activities

He is in the leadership of IPEN's working group for dioxin, PCB and waste since 2001. In 2005, he began to represent IPEN in the Stockholm Convention's expert group for the assessment of the best available technologies (BAT/BEP Expert Group) and from 2015 also in the "Small Intersessional Working Group" for the issue of waste containing persistent organic substances of the Basel Convention. He was also involved in the preparation of the

Minamata Convention The Minamata Convention on Mercury is an international treaty designed to protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds. The convention was a result of three years of meetin ...

(on

mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

) best available technology documents.

References

External links

Jindřich Petrlík
Researchgate
Jindřich Petrlík
in the Database of the Czech National Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Petrlik, Jindrich 1961 births Living people People from Teplice Czech environmentalists