ALONG THE MARONI RIVER, Suriname — Jeovane de Jesús Aguiar was knee-deep in mud in the 100-meter trench he had dug in the Amazon rainforest, sifting through brown water, when he found the shiny little flake he was looking for: a mix of gold and mercury.
Aguiar had sprinkled liquid mercury on the floor of his makeshift gold mine in the eastern tip of Suriname, as he did every two or three days. The toxic element mixes with gold dust and forms an amalgam that he can extract from the mud. He then sets the mixture on fire, burning the mercury into the air, where the winds spread it throughout the forest and borders, poisoning the plants, animals and people he encounters.. Gold is left behind. That part usually ends up in Europe, the US and the Persian Gulf, often in the form of jewelry.
20 minutes down the river, the Wayana indigenous community is getting sick. The Wayana eat river fish every day and, in recent years, many have suffered from joint pain, muscle weakness and inflammation. They also say that birth defects are increasing. Tests show that the Wayana have between double and triple the acceptable levels of mercury in their blood.
“We are no longer allowed to eat certain fish,” Linia Opoya said in June, showing her hands, which hurt after meals. “But there is nothing more. “It’s what we’ve always eaten.”
Driven by the scientific consensus that mercury causes brain damage, serious illnesses and birth defects, most countries around the world signed a treaty in 2013 committing to eradicating its use globally.
However, 10 years later, mercury is still a scourge. It has seriously harmed thousands of children in Indonesia. It has contaminated rivers throughout the Amazon, creating a humanitarian crisis for Brazil’s largest uncontacted tribe. And globally, doctors still warn against overconsumption of certain fish because the toxic metal floats into the ocean and is absorbed into the food chain.
Suriname, a forested nation of 620,000 on the northern edge of South America, is a case study in how mercury has become so intractable largely due to society’s insatiable appetite for gold.
Mercury has been poisoning the population of Suriname for decades. Nearly one in five births results in complications such as death, low birth weight or disabilities, double the rate in the United States. However, the mercury has also boosted the economy; Gold accounts for 85 percent of Suriname’s exports, mostly mined with mercury.
“I could work without mercury,” said Aguiar, 51. “But it wouldn’t be profitable.”
Suriname has banned mercury, but the substance is easily smuggled and widely used.
Although Western countries, including the United States, have largely eliminated mercury, more than 10 million people in 70 countries—mostly poorer nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America—still use the toxic element to extract gold from the soil, says the United Nations.
These small-scale miners produce one-fifth of the world’s gold — and nearly two-fifths of the world’s mercury pollution, the United Nations and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say. Mining is the leading source of mercury emissions, ahead of coal-fired power plants.
Large gold miners use centrifuge machines or cyanide, which does not leach into the environment. Small-scale miners choose mercury because it is cheap and easy to use.
Although many countries have banned mercury in mining, oversight is lax, said Luis Fernandez, a professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina who has studied small-scale gold mining. Gold mining “is an economic pressure valve for the poorest countries,” he said.
And that has only been reinforced by the 12 percent rise in gold prices over the past year, to more than $65 a gram.
In 2013, the international community signed the Minamata Convention, named for a Japanese city where decades of industrial mercury pollution caused neurological diseases in more than 2,200 residents and poisoned the city’s cats, prompting them to jump into the sea. . Under the convention — which 145 nations have already ratified, including Suriname — countries committed to ban new mercury mines, close existing ones and, with some exceptions, stop the import and export of mercury.
Since then, the United States and the European Union have banned virtually all mercury exports, leaving the United Arab Emirates, Tajikistan, Russia, Mexico and Nigeria as some of the largest exporters. Researchers believe that China, which adopted the treaty, remains the world’s largest user of mercury.
However, the Minamata Convention does not cover small-scale gold mining. Where Aguiar lives along the Maroni River, which forms the border between Suriname and French Guiana, everyone is a miner or works for one.
A few hours before Aguiar dumped mercury at his mine, where he employs seven people, he docked his canoe at one of the dozens of Chinese merchants on the banks of the Maroni. The stores sell Coca-Cola, instant noodles, condoms and mercury. Aguiar bought a kilo in an unmarked bottle for $250. If he is lucky, it will be enough to extract half a kilo of gold, which he can sell for 25 thousand dollars.
Aguiar takes his loot to the Chinese merchants who sell him the mercury, who head to the hundreds of small gold-buying shops in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname.
At one store, the owner, Arnaldo Ribeiro, said he buys almost all the gold that arrives at his doors, but he doesn’t have much of an idea where it comes from. He resells it to Kaloti Minthouse, a joint venture between the Government of Suriname and a gold importer based in the United Arab Emirates, which then exports it around the world.
Wilco Zijlmans, a pediatrician in Suriname, said that the impact of mercury was clear. In a 2020 study of 1,200 Surinamese women that he helped conduct, 97 percent of those in the country’s interior, where it is most frequently used, had dangerous levels of the metal in their bodies. Zijlmans also found that children in Suriname were much more likely today than a generation ago to have delayed brain development, diminished motor skills, and poorer social and language skills.
The effects are also manifesting on the other side of the border. The Wayana indigenous community has around a thousand members spread across Suriname and French Guiana, which is French territory. French doctors have followed the spread of mercury in some villages.
“Eventually, it will be like Minamata here too,” said Opoya, who lives in a village on French territory.
By: FABIAN FEDERL and JACK NICAS
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6934781, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-10-12 21:10:07
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