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The indigenous and river communities of the Loreto region of the Peruvian Amazon have a “chronic exhibition” in Mercury, according to a new study – and the experts say that the greatest culprit is the extraction of gold in the region.
The results of the tests published this month by the Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation in Wake Forest University (CINCIA) in the United States show that almost 80% of people tested at the end of last year had mercury levels well above the safety limits in six communities on the banks of the rivers Nanay and Pintuyacu.
“The majority of the population is contaminated,” said Jairo Reategui Davila, the APU, or leader, of San Antonio de Nanay, one of the communities tested.
“We call on the authorities to take action on the issue because we are very worried,” he said.
The results showed that 37% of 273 men, women and children tested had mercury levels at more than 10 ppm (parties per million) in their hair, against only three percent of 2.2 ppm established by the World Health Organization (WHO).
How has so much mercury entered the environment? The central factor is a desire for gold, according to scientists and those responsible.
Gold prices have climbed almost 50% over the past year, beating successive records and encouraging an illegal florizing gold extraction exchange in Amazon, where illegal minors use mercury to extract gold particles from the river silt.
Once the gold is extracted, these mining operations burn mercury, transforming the toxic metal into steam absorbed by the surrounding plants, the soil and the rivers, said Claudia Vega, head of the Mercury program in Cincia, damaging local nature and biodiversity and raising significant health problems.
Mercury poisoning is associated with several health problems, including cognitive disorders in adults and irreversible development delays and learning difficulties for children and babies in the uterus.
Gabriel Barría, regional coordinator for heavy metals for local health authorities, said that it was “very regrettable that the villagers were very contaminated” and blamed the propagation of illegal gold extraction for mercury levels in the Amazon rivers.
He said the health authority did not have the budget to carry out Mercury tests and had only 12 villagers during a recent health visit based on blood and urine samples.
Exceeding the limit
Cincia said the tests revealed that an average level was 8.41 ppm, exceeding the WHO limit of almost four times.
Since the illegal mining in Loreto is quite recent, there are not yet complete studies on its impact on health on the local population.
But the levels of these initial tests are already higher than those of the Peruvian Amazon region most affected by illegal gold extraction, Madre de Dios, where 2012 tests showed that the majority of adults had average mercury levels of 2.7 ppm.
The communities along the Amazon had to face the illegal gold extraction operations for decades, but it has become an assembly problem in South America in recent years despite the governments that are trying to seduce.
In 2023, Colombia, Brazil and the United States joined forces with Destroy 19 illegal gold mines flirts in the Amazonian forest. About 114,000 grams of mercury were thrown into the river each month on these sites, which, according to the authorities, were led by a transnational criminal group.
Luis Fernandez, Executive Director of Cincia and research professor at the University of Wake Forest, said that if an illegal mine continued to spread to Loreto, then the villagers with already high mercury levels could start to approach those who are close to the most recorded cases of contamination by mercury.
This includes the bay of Minamata, the renowned case in Japan in the 1950s, where children were born with congenital deformations and neurological handicaps caused by a pouring of chemical factory in water supply for decades.
Vega de Cincia, who directed the study, said that the results showed disturbing “background” levels in Loreto riparian communities.
The fish -based diet of the villagers was the largest vector for the mercury entering their systems, said Vega. Although this particular study cannot entirely determine if mercury came from natural sources or activities caused by humans as illegal gold extraction, it noted that “several studies agree that the entrance to mining in a territory tends to considerably increase the levels of mercury in the environment”.
The villagers tested for this newly published study were mainly exposed to methylmercury, revealed that the researchers noted a highly toxic form which accumulates in the body.
“”[The] The biggest risk is for women and pregnant children: methylmercury can cross the placenta and affect the development of the baby’s brain in development, “said Vega.” This type of exposure is a serious public health problem, even if affected people do not have immediate symptoms. “”
