A lush expanse of Amazon rainforest known as the "Mother of God" is steadily being destroyed in Peru, with the jungle giving way to mercury-filled tailing ponds used to extract the gold hidden underground.
Illegal mines dump an estimated 30 to 40 tons of mercury into the region's rivers every year, contaminating them and their fish, according to the Peruvian government.
A Stanford University study found that the region's indigenous people had up to five times the internationally accepted level of mercury in their bodies
http://phys.org/news/2014-11-gold-ecological-disaster-peruvian-amazon.html#nRlv
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