Gold war in Colombia: traditional miners against the state

A succession of illegal dredgers, floating platforms from which miners work 12 hours a day, line the Nechí river. The impact of the mining here is manifest: the murky brown waters carry mercury and other harmful elements such as arsenic, lead or cyanide, and the deforestation on the hillsides is wreaking havoc. Colombia has the world’s highest level of mercury pollution, according to government data, and the worst affected area is Segovia, where mercury amalgamation is widely used to separate gold from waste.
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