Mercury is used in artisanal mining to separate the gold from the rocks and sediments. Once in the environment, it journeys through the ecosystem and may be transformed into the more harmful methylmercury. Methylmercury can accumulate in fish – a main food source in many gold-mining areas.
People in mining communities are mainly exposed by breathing mercury vapors during gold processing and by eating contaminated fish. Elevated mercury levels pose significant public health threats, including inhibiting immune response to diseases like malaria as well as problems with brain and nervous system function.
The recent increase in the price of gold has lured many – an estimated 30,000 – to work in camps as miners, even though the mining is illegal. Seventy percent of Peru's 16 tons of gold is mined and processed in Madre de Dios. The practice leads to large-scale deforestation in the most biologically diverse part of the country. This informal gold mining – and specifically, the use of mercury in its processing – are poorly regulated, resulting in a lack of environmental and human health protection.
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