Small gold operations dump more than 30 tonnes of mercury in rivers and lakes in the Amazon region every year, according to a studyAn illegal miner at Durban Roodepoort Deep. Picture: THE TIMES
In the Yanomami indigenous lands along Brazil’s border with Venezuela, the number of illegal miners has grown 10-fold since December to 20,000, according to Instituto Socioambiental, which monitors native groups. The miners are emboldened by President Jair Bolsonaro’s rhetoric on the area’s mineral wealth, and enabled by authorities that have lowered their guard. But the risk wouldn’t be as attractive without the price surge.
In general, miners are considered illegal when they fail to get proper permits, work in environmentally protected areas, use heavy machinery without oversight, fail to pay taxes or employ workers without contracts. Small gold operations dump more than 30 tonnes of mercury in rivers and lakes in the Amazon region every year, according to a study by the Carnegie Amazon Mercury Project quoted in Wagner’s report. Exposure can cause cancer, neurological damage and, potentially, shock and death.
Through the years, miners have devastated an area of the Peruvian Amazon that’s almost five times the size of Manhattan. Meanwhile, Peru’s government has seen limited success containing illegal mining, despite raids by armed forces. More than 90% of the gold there is mined illegally, but the government has so far formalised just 5,000 miners out of the 300,000 operating in the country, according to estimates by Lima-based consultancy Macroconsult.
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