'When we analyzed rainwater, throughfall, and leaves from forests near gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon, including a mining-adjacent protected biological research station, we found incredibly high concentrations of mercury.' by jackiergerson
Small-scale gold mining has been going on in the Amazon for decades, with huge expansion of this activity since the early 2000s. It is often done via river dredging, in which miners excavate sediments in search of small pieces of gold. To separate the gold, miners mix liquid mercury into the sediment, which forms a coating around the gold. After burning off the mercury, what’s left is solid gold that makes up 20 percent of all the gold on the world market.
The Amazon hosts the largest biodiversity on the planet and is facing high levels of mercury pollution. While scientists have long studied the fate of mercury in the environment, these studies have mostly focused on mercury emitted from industrial processes in the Global North, with little focus on mercury from artisanal gold mining in the Global South.
When we analyzed rainwater, throughfall, and leaves from forests near gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon, including a mining-adjacent protected biological research station in Peru called Los Amigos Conservation Concession, we found incredibly high concentrations of mercury. At Los Amigos, levels of mercury entering these intact forests were 15 times higher than the nearby deforested area or forested areas further from gold mining.
While these results starkly show the high amount of mercury entering Amazonian forests, more research is needed to understand the implications of mercury for the wide diversity of organisms living in these ecosystems. What we can say with confidence is that we need to continue to conserve these forests. Mercury persists for centuries within soils. If these forests are clear-cut or burned, the stored mercury could be released, leading to even higher levels of mercury in nearby rivers and lakes.
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