Skip to main content

Mercury's Toxic Touch: Public Health Crises in the Amazon Linked to Illegal Gold Mining

Presentation Summary

My presentation was on mercury poisoning in indigenous communities of the Peruvian Amazon caused by illegal goldmining activities. The article was posted on October 02, 2020 on the Anthropology News website, published by the American Anthropological Association. I often use this source for finding current issues in public health considered in anthropological contexts, which of course is my own background.

The article reviews the history of mercury toxicity in the region and describes the population health outcomes for native peoples making a home of this now poisoned environment.  Mercury is an environmental pollutant that can travel far from its emission source, where it can damage human health and the environment. Artisanal and Small Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) is estimated to be the largest source of global mercury emissions, and occurs in the context of power, race, and gender dynamics in mining communities; as well as a long history of encultured racism linked to colonial expansion and the spread of Spanish language, culture and cognition throughout the Andean and Amazonian world.

As the people of the Peruvian Amazon were getting sick, their culture systems lacked the language to describe such phenomena; having never experienced the kind of health outcomes associated with mercury poison, community cosmologies were left with no explanation for what was happening to their children and other members of their community. The one thing that was clear was it was caused by invasive outsiders, mining the mountaintops and basins of the Andes and Amazon- wherein they have found homes for tens of thousands of years.

Indigenous leaders identified the source of the pollution and rallied support of other native peoples around the world, culminating in a delegation at the United Nations in Switzerland. Two Indigenous representations came from the Madre de Dios region of Peru to attend the Third Conference of the Parties (COP3) to the Minamata Convention on Mercury. After days of deliberation and testimonies from community leaders around the world describing their own experiences and interactions with ASGM-linked toxicity, the outcome was overwhelming in support of their demands to put a check on both legal and illegal mining activities; as well as bring home best practices for public health approaches to reducing the burden of mercury poisoning in vulnerable communities.

 

Image description: The infographic title reads “Facts & Figures ASGM Artisanal and Small Scale Gold Mining” and overlays an image of a silver pan that someone is holding. Below that there is a line of human figures in blue, purple, and green; the text accompanying the figures reads “10–15 million miners including 4–6 million women and children.” The next line includes a stack of gold bars and text stating “12–15% of world gold supply.” Beside the gold bars is an illustration of a factory that is accompanied by the text “More than 1,400 tons of mercury per year released to the environment. Largest source of mercury pollution in the world. At the bottom of the infographic, there is a map of the world in grey with purple pins that represent the different areas affected. The clusters of pins are located in Africa, Southeast Asia, South America, and Central America. The text beside the map reads “over 70 countries affected." Caption: ASGM Facts and Figures. Global Mercury Partnership

Presentation: Mercury's Toxic Touch 


























Sources:

  1. Goldstein R. Mercury's Toxic Touch. Anthropology News. https://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2020/10/02/mercurys-toxic-touch/. Published October 2, 2020. Accessed October 4, 2020.
  2. Who.int. 2020. Mercury And Health. [online] Available at: <https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mercury-and-health> [Accessed 8 October 2020].
  3. Selin, N., Selin, H., Barrett, S. and Goldstein, R., 2020. NSF Award Search: Award#1924148 - CNH2-S: Mercury Pollution And Human-Technical-Environmental Interactions In Artisanal Mining. [online] Nsf.gov. Available at: <https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1924148> [Accessed 8 October 2020].
  4. Mercury.unitar.org. 2020. UNEP-UNITAR Mercury Platform. [online] Available at: <https://mercury.unitar.org/site/document/1272> [Accessed 8 October 2020].

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Community Practicum Project: Part 1-3

As a scholar with specific subject matter expertise in anthropology and public health, and as an individual living with HIV, a first generation college student, and queer man with history of substance abuse whose work and life are deeply intertwined, I have derived a lot of comfort and hope in bearing witness to the power of community coalitions while accompanying community leaders and advocates in mobilizing to take care of one another, to act, and to engage in necessary fights around issues that have long been in existence: universal and meaningful healthcare, abolition, housing rights, equal employment, gender equality, environmental justice, and rights of marginalized communities, displaced populations, migrants and immigrants. I have worked alongside community leaders, activists, and health and social providers in the field of HIV and disease prevention who have long refused to accept the status quo, and have instead, created their own forms of care or reimagined the existing sy...
1 comment
Read more

Let's Talk About "Butt Stuff"

On Identity and Rectal Screening in MSM  I mean if folx are asking about the ass and no one is willing to talk about it, then imagine the needs of those who do not talk about "butt stuff"...For example, those who engage is sexual practices like anal receptive sex but do not identify or do not disclosure their identity as gay, bi, or MSM. They are unlikely to talk about their asses in a clinical setting, and therefore unlikely to be offered prevention or treatment.  A recent STI treatment experience once again reinforced the need to call attention to the lack of discussion about "butt stuff" among men who have sex with men (MSM), notwithstanding their identities. There is little focus on the needs of sexual minorities and the health issues associated with particular practices and sexual identities are even less established among relevant stakeholders; and for me, as a Bottom, I am particular bothered by the lack of care I receive from medical professionals in a varie...
1 comment
Read more

The War on Sex: Some Notes

  The War on Sex Sex is an important site of social control, adjudication, and- ultimately -oppression. Many social movement organizations have focused on sexual health and do not generally frame their work in terms of social justice or civil rights. The failed attempts to decriminalize HIV in the Virginia legislature, both within and outside the General Assembly, are both troubling and deserving of critical examination, and yet they are just pieces of a much larger puzzle comprising legal, social, and economic systems that do not readily seem to fit together. Institutional ethnography: Interrelationships among the General Assembly, Virginia Department of Health, and community organizations working to repeal the laws criminalizing HIV in the Commonwealth are each a subject of analysis here… The Problems of Prospective: “Thinking Sex”                 From the beginning, this issue was not seen for ...
Post a Comment
Read more