They’re after any speck of gold, which is often processed using highly toxic mercury.
But despite all the risks, each of the 15,000 small scale miners in this area usually earn little more than a few dollars a day.
“If I can find a better job then I will go,” Larry says. “If I found something better that would help me put him through school, that’s what I would want to do.”
Compressor mining is only used in the Philippines and it is illegal there, but there’s little sign of enforcement.
“If I could only give them opportunities, job opportunities, I would take them away, especially from compressor mining,” local Mayor Ricarte Padilla tells Evan. “It is just that I have no alternative at this point.”
“They would go back to you and say can you feed us? Can you sustain our families? It’s a situation where damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
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