Health time bomb ticks as illegal miners use mercury to extract gold in Indonesia

The situation has been described as a “health time bomb” by Professor Marcello Veiga, an expert in the use of mercury in small-scale gold mining at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “They will die by the thousands,” he said.

Jakarta hopes that a landmark UN convention, signed this week in Japan aimed at reining in the use of mercury, will limit supplies of the metal for miners in Indonesia and help reduce the deadly practice.

But others believe the treaty, signed near Minamata in southwest Japan where mercury pollution poisoned tens of thousands, is too weak to tackle a problem that has grown in tandem with the price of gold.

The United Nations estimates that up to 15 million so-called “artisanal small-scale gold miners” operate in 70 countries. In Indonesia, the numbers have risen from an estimated 50,000 in 2006 to around 500,000, according to Abdul Harris, who heads a government-backed task force charged with tackling the issue. 
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