In Peru’s Amazon women gold miners ditch toxic mercury

As gold prices surge, so has illegal mining in South America, destroying forests and polluting rivers, but women in eastern Peru are pioneering technology that does not rely on toxic mercury and even produces more of the precious metal.

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In parts of Madre de Dios, one of Peru's most biodiverse regions, illegal mining has left a desert-like landscape strewn with lifeless craters and poisoned rivers.

“We cannot continue polluting and releasing more mercury into the environment,” said 65-year-old Victoria Condori, an artisanal miner with an 800-hectare (,977-acre) concession employing 16 workers on the Madre de Dios River. Using heavy diggers, high-pressure hoses and a series of sluices, half a dozen miners can process around 20 metric tons of soil into I5 kg of black dirt that can contain anything from 20 g to 60 g of gold in about I2 hours.

Artisanal miners would then usually stir mercury into the mix to bind with the gold and extract it, but the process releases the toxic metal into the ecosystem, poisoning animals, people and rivers. Mercury is one of the top IO chemicals of major public health concern, according to the World Health Organization, and is linked to developmental delays in children, cognitive impairment and damage to the kidney, lungs and immune system.