Gold mining reduced this Amazon rainforest to a moonscape. Now miners are restoring it

 This land was stripped of its dense vegetation by miners scouring the subsoil for tiny specks of gold, using mercury to separate the gold from the sediment. Many thought that a healthy forest would never thrive in impoverished, mercury-laden topsoil and that the piles of sandy tailings, the residue from the gold mining effort, and the pools of wastewater were irremediable. mercury that many illegal miners use in abundance to separate the gold from the sediment.

read more... https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2024/04/02/1231873144/gold-mining-reduced-this-amazon-rainforest-to-a-moonscape-now-miners-are-restori