Leaked map reveals chronic mercury epidemic in Peru
Leaked map reveals chronic mercury epidemic in Peru
People living upriver from gold-mining are the most contaminated, according to US-based scientists
David Hill
Saturday 19 November 2016 06.51 EST
An image of a unpublished map obtained by the Guardian, based on “preliminary results” from studies of local inhabitants by the Duke Global Health Institute in the US, provides some idea of how widely-spread and severe the mercury contamination is across Madre de Dios. Arguably the map’s most alarming revelation is that the most contaminated area of all is upstream from the mining: the stretch of the River Madre de Dios between towns called Boca Colorado and Boca Manu, a significant part of which is in the buffer zone of the Manu national park, which Unesco calls the most biodiverse place on earth.
“It is noteworthy that some areas with high averages of mercury are upriver from the mining zones,” states the map, which was shown to Health Ministry officials earlier this year.
The map suggests the second worse-hit area is inside the Manu park itself, immediately upriver from Boca Manu, along the River Manu’s left bank. The right bank is affected too. William Pan, the study’s lead researcher, told the Guardian “we didn’t sample people in Manu national park”, but explains the map on the basis that his teams have sampled several communities “along that bend of the river (Rio Manu/Rio Madre de Dios)” and “the map smoothing method creates a 10km buffer around the study sites and the exposure is extrapolated”.
How come people upstream are the most contaminated? Or maybe the mercury there has little or nothing to do with gold? As acknowledged by a 2011 report by the Environment Ministry, titled Gold-mining and Mercury Contamination in Madre de Dios: a Time-Bomb, mercury stored naturally in Amazon soil and vegetation is released when the forest is cut down or burnt and then leaches into the water.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-the-amazon/2016/nov/19/leaked-map-reveals-chronic-mercury-epidemic-in-perus-amazon