"The miners also use mercury -- which binds with gold and forms an amalgam. These miners are not only exposed to toxic mercury -- the chemical and its vapors when they burn it off -- they're also contaminating the land and inadvertently poisoning food chains," Al Jazeera wrote.
Luis Fernandez, the director the Carnegie Amazon Mercury Ecosystem Project, has been studying the illegal gold mining's toxic effects since 2000. According to Fernandez, mercury "magnifies" and "the more it travels along the food chain the stronger the contamination becomes," Al Jazeera further reported. Fishes from these waters are being caught and eaten by people hundreds of kilometers downstream.
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