Gold Mining Destroys The Peruvian Rainforest With Mercury

Small-scale mining is devastating the rainforest. The mining crews don’t expect to hit streams of gold, but instead, they scavenge for tiny gold flakes scattered throughout the entire rainforest. They dredge the river sediment and clear out land of trees, and then they use mercury to extract precious metals out of the dirt. This method leaves the landscape sucked from nutrients, devoid of most vegetation, and with the toxic mercury having a disastrous effect on any remaining animal or plant life. “There’s enough gold in the landscape to make a great deal of money in a struggling economy. You just have to destroy an immense amount of land to get it,” Fernandez remarked.
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