Madre de Dios… and its future

Mining began in the 70’s when there was a gold rush into the Amazonia where most migrants, mainly from the Peruvian highlands, went to Madre de Dios to find their fortune.  At first, miners used manual-traditional methods; but today they often use complex machinery and toxic chemicals like mercury for extraction. Also, many export companies are involved in putting illegally mined gold into the legal market, which makes it hard for consumers and retailers to know where their gold is actually coming from or how it was mined.
The extraction process of Amazonian gold, removes the soil from the bottom of Amazon rivers or the shores of rivers and then transports it into the washing-installations where the amalgamation process begins. This process consists in mixing mercury with the river sands, and then burning the mercury to extract the gold. Gold miners use nearly 2.8 kilograms of mercury per kilo of gold, which amounts to millions of tons of mercury per year being dumped into Amazon Rivers and streams, killing wildlife and harming local indigenous peoples.
Miners are exposed to the mercury gases, since they do not use protective equipment; and they can carry the mercury particles in their hair, skin and clothes affecting their families back home.
http://blog.raintees.com/2012/08/madre-de-dios%E2%80%A6-and-its-future/