Illegal Mining in French Guyana Ravaging Rainforests and Indigenous Group Habitats

In French Guyana alone, illegal gold mining has extended deep into pristine rainforests. Let’s be statistically graphic here: used to separate gold from ore, 1.3 kilograms of mercury is required to recover only 1 kilogram of gold. We estimate that 1.5 to 2 tons of mercury is released each year into the environment, with more than 300 tons having been released since the beginning of this century. This is massive in at least three ways: in such amounts mercury seriously damages the ecosystems, pollutes all nearby waterways, and can deform and even kill all forms of life downstream from jungle mining sites. The Guyana Shield rainforest is the largest remaining tropical forest still relatively intact, but, due to uncontrolled gold mining, in the last 20 years it has become the primary contributor to environmental degradation in the region, and represents a serious ongoing threat to all indigenous tribes. 
http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/news_may15.html