BENI RIVER – Tensions are emerging in the Bolivian Amazon due to the boom in wild gold mining that is causing increased imports of mercury used to extract the valuable steel and triggering conflicts between small prospectors and local indigenous groups.
The landlocked South American country has noticed an increase in gold production over the past five years, with a significant percentage coming from artisanal miners, according to officials. This has increased with the world’s highest value of gold in recent years.
Indigenous officials and leaders are now concerned about the effect of mining on the local environment and waterways, and the encroachment of indigenous lands, as has happened in the Amazon in Peru and Brazil, with miners increasingly emboldened.
“They beat us with firecrackers and dynamite, they threw stones at us,” Bolivian Senator Cecilia Requena told Reuters during a vacation in a small village along the Beni River in the north of the country, a hot spot for illegal gold mining.
During May, Reuters saw symptoms of mining machinery along the river and heard explosions from mining operations. Requena showed Reuters a video of a recent stopover in which his boat was attacked by a guy throwing stones.
“You have been warned, haven’t you?” the guy shouted.
The accumulation of wild mining has noted Bolivia, a country of about 12 million people, the world’s largest importer of mercury since 2019, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), which tracks global industrial flows.
Mercury is the key to wild gold mining and experts say its expansion reflects the industry’s boom.
“Small-scale mining activity and mercury use in the country have increased,” Marcos Orellana, the U. N. special rapporteur on poisonous ingredients and human rights, told Reuters.
“The use of mercury in gold mining has serious effects on environmental protection, deforestation and the rights of indigenous peoples,” he explained, adding that it pollutes the water used for washing and fishing.
Bolivia’s Mining Ministry responded to Reuters’ requests for comment on the story.
“Here we are totally contaminated,” said Isidro Flores, leader of the indigenous network Correo who lives next to the river. “You can’t bathe or drink. Before we fished in the river and now we can’t do it anymore, everything is polluted.
Requena, a centrist lawmaker, has a vocal activist seeking to establish regulations to curb wild mining in the Bolivian Amazon.
“We have gained signs that we are threatened,” Requena said. “People say they have mine and no one can take it away. They say they will fight and use violence if necessary. “information through Marcelo Rochabrun and Monica Machicao; Editing via Adam Jourdan and Diane Craft)
The fashion mix sees the recognizable silhouette of the Crocs, which has noticed a resurgence in popularity in recent seasons thanks to celebrities like Justin Bieber, decorated in MCM fashion.
365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, ONTARIO M4W 3L4
© 2022 National Post, a department of Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized broadcasting, transmission or transmission is strictly prohibited.
This uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads) and allows us to analyze our traffic. Learn more about cookies here. By continuing to use our Array, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.