Twitter

Artisanal Small-Scale Gold Mining/Mercury Problems

How murky gold trade fuels wars, gangs and terror attacks – by Emma Batha (Context – November 20, 2024)

https://www.context.news/

LONDON – The illicit trade in gold from artisanal mining is feeding conflicts from Ukraine to Sudan, funding terrorism, fuelling organised crime and subjecting the world’s poorest people to horrendous violence. This is the picture painted by the World Gold Council (WGC) in a report urging concerted international action to clean up the booming sector.

The artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) industry now produces an estimated 20% of the world’s gold, up from 4% in the 1990s, and possibly accounts for 80% of the global gold mining workforce, said the ‘Silence is Golden’ report.

Read more

Illegal mines, pollution and a thirsty global market: Anger mounts over Ghana’s gold problem – by Zinhle Essamuah and Arleen Aguasvivas (NBC News – October 20, 2024)

https://www.nbcnews.com/

Mercury and heavy metals in the country have contaminated over 60% of the West African nation’s water sources, according to Ghana’s Water Resources Commission.

ACCRA, Ghana — Illegal small-scale gold mining in Ghana has been linked with the destruction of the environment and illness. But for some, the practice known locally as galamsey provides livelihoods and an informal boost to the West African nation’s economy.

With a general election approaching in December, galamsey is proving to be a hot-button issue for the nation’s lawmakers — including President Nana Akufo-Addo — in the face of widespread demonstrations across the country calling for a crackdown on the practice.

Read more

Mercury exposure widespread among Yanomami tribe in Amazon, report finds – by Fabiano Maisonnave (Asssociated Press – April 4, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Many Yanomami, the Amazon’s largest Indigenous tribe in relative isolation, have been contaminated with mercury coming from widespread illegal gold mining, according to a report released on Thursday by Brazil’s top public health institute.

The research was conducted in nine villages along the Mucajai River, a remote region where illegal mining is widespread. Mercury, a poison, is commonly used in illegal mining to process gold. The researchers collected hair samples from nearly 300 Yanomami of all ages. They were then examined by doctors, neurologists, psychologists and nurses.

Read more

Hunger for gold means the Amazon has reached ‘tipping point’ of mercury contamination from illegal mining – by Maya Fernandez (CBC News World – December 28, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/

Illegal gold mining in the Amazon has intensified, with one expert calling it a ‘transnational crime’

The rising value of gold worldwide has amplified illegal mining in the Amazon, where liquid mercury is being dumped in the Amazon River and causing scientists to warn that Indigenous communities and the environment could pay a far greater price.

Three weeks ago, Colombia, Brazil and the United States partnered up to destroy 19 illegal gold mining dredges in the Amazon Rainforest. According to Reuters, the dredges were producing about $1.9 million Cdn in gold.

Read more

Mercury is still an environmental threat – by Tristan Ahtone (Grist.org – November 9, 2023)

https://grist.org/

The heavy metal is poisoning Indigenous peoples’ environment and health, but no one can agree on how or when to get rid of it.

The negotiations produced no particularly big wins. There is still no agreement on a common, global method to measure and identify mercury-contaminated waste from industrial sources, like chemical manufacturers or oil and gas operators.

Mercury can still also be purchased online and traded internationally, and states could not agree on when to pull it from tooth fillings. But there were some successes: Nations have agreed to ban the use of mercury as a preservative in cosmetics by 2025 as well as to increase support for Indigenous peoples in future negotiations.

Read more

Brazil’s Criminal Groups Hamper Fight Against Illegal Mining in the Amazon – by Nelza Oliveira (Dialogo-Americas – August 23, 2023)

New Home Page

Brazil’s largest criminal groups, the First Command of the Capital (PCC) and the Red Command (CV), have been working together with illegal miners in the Amazon, hampering government efforts to eradicate mining and contributing to increased violence in Brazil’s Yanomami reservation, the largest indigenous territory in the world and home to approximately 30,000 indigenous people.

The criminals provide heavy machinery and weapons to miners, acting as security guards at certain sites, and helping to transport mined gold out of the Amazon. They also run prostitution and narcotrafficking rings on Yanomami land.

Read more

Gold mining in the Amazon poisoning scores of threatened species – by Gloria Dickie and Jake Spring (Japan Times – August 7, 2023)

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/

LOS AMIGOS BIOLOGICAL STATION, PERU – In a camping tent in the Peruvian jungle, four scientists are crowded around a tiny patient: An Amazonian rodent that could fit in the palm of a human hand.
The researchers placed the small-eared pygmy rice rat into a plastic chamber and piped in anesthetic gas until it rolled over, asleep.

Removing the creature from the chamber, they fitted it with a miniature anesthetic mask and measured its body parts with a ruler before gently pulling hairs from its back with tweezers. The hairs, bundled into a tiny plastic bag, would be carried to a nearby lab at the Los Amigos Biological Station for testing to determine whether the rat is yet another victim of mercury contamination.

Read more

As Sudan’s latest conflict intensifies, artisanal gold miners are caught in the crosshairs – by Philip Obaji Jr. (Equal Times.org – May 24, 2023)

https://www.equaltimes.org/

On 17 April 2023, just before sunset in al-Ibaidiya, a Sudanese mining town on the banks of the River Nile about 400 kilometres north of Khartoum, four soldiers stormed the home of Omar Sheriff and dragged him out of his house. For hours, according to Sheriff, two of the soldiers searched his home, while the others held him hostage outside of his compound.

“They [the soldiers] falsely accused me of working with Russian merchants to smuggle gold out of Sudan,” Sheriff tells Equal Times. “They were hoping to find documents relating to gold smuggling operations at my home, but they couldn’t find anything incriminating.”

Read more

‘Worse than it ever was’: Why the Amazon’s largest isolated tribe is dying – by Jack Nicas (Irish Times – March 29, 2023)

https://www.irishtimes.com/

The illegal tin mine was so remote that, for three years, the large gash it cut into the Amazon rainforest had gone largely ignored. So when three mysterious helicopters suddenly hovered overhead, unannounced, the miners living there scrambled into the forest.

By the time Brazil’s environmental special forces team piled out, the miners were out of sight, but the mine’s two large pumps were still vibrating in the mud. The federal agents began dousing the machines in diesel fuel.

Read more

Countries’ reporting fails to tell full story of mercury pollution – by Staff (Mining.com – March 26, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

A recent study of baseline mercury emission estimates by artisanal gold mining reported by 25 countries—many in developing African, South American and Asian nations—found that these estimates rarely provide enough information to tell whether shifts in the rate from one year to the next were the result of actual change or data uncertainty.

Key variables—like how the country determines the amount of its gold production—can result in vastly different baseline estimates. Yet, countries often don’t report this range of possible estimates.

Read more

Ending the toxic trail of small-scale gold mining (UN Environment Programme – February 15, 2023)

 

https://www.unep.org/

https://www.planetgold.org/

Strapped together by tape and frayed ropes, wooden logs demarcate the mineshaft’s entrance, a hole in the ground no larger than a metre square. A young man nearby cranks a lever, kickstarting some generators. The steady hum of the machinery blends with the creaking of a pulley system, drowning out the sounds of the gentle breeze blowing through the mining site, located in Paracale, north Philippines.

A young man tied to a harness begins his descent down the pit and deep beneath the planet’s surface, his headlamp the only visible source of light. Upon reaching the bottom of the cramped mineshaft, he pulls out a small chisel and hammer and begins chipping away at the rock.

Read more

‘Right material’ to efficiently remove mercury from water shows promising results – by Staff (Mining.com – August 17, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Researchers at Drexel University have found the right material to efficiently catch mercury —even at low levels— and clean up contaminated bodies of water. According to lead researcher Masoud Soroush, adsorption —the process of chemically attracting and removing contaminants— seems to be the most promising technology for removing mercury from water, due to its relative simplicity.

“Modern adsorbents, such as resins, mesoporous silica, chalcogenides, and mesoporous carbons, have higher efficiencies than traditional adsorbents, such as activated carbon, clays, and zeolites that have a low affinity toward mercury and low capacities,” Soroush said in a media statement.

Read more

Pope worried about pollution of rivers with mercury used by gold miners in the Amazon – by Bruno Kelly and Anthony Boadle (Mining.com/Reuters – August 9, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Pope Francis will install the first cardinal of Brazil’s Amazon region this month in a sign of his concern for the rainforest and its indigenous inhabitants, the man whom he picked for the role said.

Dom Leonardo Steiner, archbishop of the Brazilian city of Manaus, said in an interview that Francis, the first pope from Latin America, is worried about deforestation, threats to indigenous cultures and pollution of rivers with mercury used by gold miners in the Amazon.

Read more

The Illegal Airstrips Bringing Toxic Mining to Brazil’s Indigenous Land – by Manuela Andreoni, Blacki Migliozzi, Pablo Robles and Denise Lu (New York Times – August 2, 2022)

https://www.nytimes.com/

BOA VISTA, Brazil — From 2,500 feet in the air, the dirt airstrip is just a crack in a seemingly endless ocean of rainforest, surrounded by muddy mining pits that bleed toxic chemicals into a riverbed.

The airstrip is owned by the Brazilian government — the only way for health care officials to reach the Indigenous people in the nearby village. But illegal miners have seized it, using small planes to ferry equipment and fuel into areas where roads don’t exist. And when a plane the miners don’t recognize approaches, they spread fuel canisters along the airstrip to make landing impossible.

Read more

Swiss gold refiners pledge to avoid Brazilian Amazon gold – by Dominique Soguel (Swiss Info – June 30, 2022)

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/

In a rare statement, Swiss refiners also said they would take the “necessary technical and humanly possible measures in order not to take, import or refine illegal gold including the one from Brazil by tracing and identifying this gold.” They also urged the Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro to do more to protect the indigenous population and the environment.

Gold mining by irregular artisanal miners contributes to the deforestation of the Amazon, leaves the soil poisoned with mercury and encroaches on traditional indigenous lands. Brazilian export data and academic studies suggest much of that gold goes to or through Switzerland, a key player in the global gold trade.

Read more