by Sergio Limachi
RIO BENI, Bolivia (Reuters) – Tensions are mounting in Bolivia’s Amazon region as a surge in gold mining fueled an increase in imports of mercury, which is used to extract the precious metal, leading to clashes between miners and indigenous groups.
According to officials, the country has seen an increase in gold production over the past five years, with a significant amount coming from miners. In recent years, with the price of gold rising worldwide, the search has increased.
Indigenous officials and leaders are now concerned about how mining affects the local environment and waterways and encroaches on indigenous lands, such as in Peru and the Brazilian Amazon.
“We were greeted with fireworks and dynamite, they threw stones at us,” Bolivian senator Cecilia Requena told Reuters during a trip to a small village along the Beni River in the north of the country, which is a hotspot for illegal gold mining.
During the trip in May, Reuters saw signs of mining machinery along the river and heard explosions of mining operations. Requena showed Reuters video of a recent visit where she was attacked by a man who threw stones at her boat.
“You’ve been warned, haven’t you?” cried the man.
The rise in wild mining has made Bolivia, a country of nearly 12 million people, the world’s largest importer of mercury since 2019, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), which monitors global trade flows.
Mercury is critical to gold mining, and experts say the increase in imports is a reflection of how the industry is growing.
“Small-scale mining and mercury use has increased in the country,” Marcos Orellana, UN special rapporteur on toxic substances and human rights, told Reuters.
“The use of mercury in gold mining has serious implications for environmental protection, deforestation and especially the rights of indigenous peoples,” he explained, adding that it pollutes the water used for washing and fishing.
Bolivia’s Ministry of Mining did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
“We’re really totally polluted here,” said Isidro Flores, leader of the Correo indigenous community living near the river. “You can’t even take a shower, you can’t drink water. We used to fish in the river, now you can’t, it’s dirty everywhere.”
A centrist parliamentarian, Requena became an activist trying to establish rules to prevent wild mining in the Bolivian Amazon.
“We’ve had signs that we’ve been threatened,” Requena said. “People say I have a right and no one can take it away from me. They say they will fight, they will use violence if necessary.”
(Additional reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun and Monica Machicao)
source: Noticias
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