Mercury poisoning in Peru's Amazon found in nearly 80 per cent of villagers in recent study

Thomson Reuters

· Posted: Jun 20, 2025 2:13 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

Indigenous and riverine communities successful the Loreto portion of the Peruvian Amazon person "chronic exposure" to mercury, according to a caller survey — and experts accidental the biggest culprit is golden mining successful the region. 

The trial results released this period by the Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation astatine Wake Forest University (CINCIA) successful the United States amusement astir 80 per cent of the radical tested precocious past twelvemonth had levels of mercury acold supra the harmless limits successful six communities connected the banks of the Nanay and Pintuyacu rivers. 

"The bulk of the colonisation is contaminated," said Jairo Reategui Davila, the Apu, oregon leader, of San Antonio de Nanay, 1 of the tested communities. 

"We telephone connected the authorities to instrumentality enactment connected the substance due to the fact that we are precise concerned," helium said. 

The results showed 37 per cent of the 273 men, women and children tested had levels of mercury astatine much than 10 ppm (parts per million) successful their hair, compared to conscionable three per cent nether the 2.2 ppm bounds established by the World Health Organization (WHO). 

How did truthful overmuch mercury get successful the environment? The cardinal origin is simply a lust for gold, according to scientists and officials. 

Gold prices person soared by astir 50 per cent successful the past year, beating successive grounds highs, and encouraging a flourishing amerciable golden mining commercialized successful the Amazon, wherever amerciable miners usage mercury to extract golden particles from the stream silt. 

After the golden is extracted, these mining operations pain disconnected the mercury, turning the toxic metallic to vapour that is absorbed by surrounding plants, ungraded and rivers, said Claudia Vega, caput of the mercury programme astatine CINCIA, damaging section quality and biodiversity and raising important wellness concerns. 

Mercury poisoning is associated with respective wellness issues, including cognitive impairment successful adults and irreversible developmental delays and learning difficulties for children and babies successful the womb.

Gabriel Barría, determination coordinator for dense metals for the section wellness authority, said it was "very regrettable that villagers were highly contaminated" and blamed the dispersed of amerciable golden mining for the mercury levels successful Amazon rivers.

He said the wellness authorization did not person the fund to transportation retired tests for mercury and had lone tested 12 villagers connected a caller wellness sojourn relying connected humor and urine samples.

Exceeding the limit

CINCIA said tests revealed an mean level was 8.41 ppm, exceeding the WHO bounds by astir 4 times.

Given that amerciable mining successful Loreto is reasonably recent, determination are nary broad studies connected its wellness interaction connected the section colonisation yet.

But the levels successful these archetypal tests are already higher than those successful the Peruvian Amazon portion astir impacted by amerciable golden mining, Madre de Dios, wherever 2012 tests showed the bulk of adults had mean mercury levels of 2.7 ppm.

Communities on the Amazon person had to woody with amerciable golden mining operations for decades, but it's go a mounting occupation successful South America successful caller years contempt governments attempting to ace down connected them. 

In 2023, Colombia, Brazil and the U.S. teamed up to destruct 19 amerciable golden mining dredges successful the Amazon rainforest. Around 114,000 grams of mercury was being dumped into the stream each period astatine these sites, which authorities said were tally by a transnational transgression group.

Luis Fernandez, enforcement manager of CINCIA and probe prof astatine Wake Forest University, said if amerciable mining continued to dispersed successful Loreto, past villagers with already precocious mercury levels mightiness statesman to attack those adjacent to the worst-recorded cases of mercury contamination.

This includes Minamata Bay, the renowned lawsuit successful Japan successful the 1950s, wherever children were calved with congenital deformities and neurological disabilities caused by a chemic mill dumping mercury into the h2o proviso for decades.

Vega from CINCIA, who led the study, said the results showed worrying "background" levels of mercury successful the Loreto riparian communities.

The villagers' fish-based fare was the biggest vector for the mercury entering their systems, Vega said. While this peculiar survey couldn't afloat find if the mercury came from people occurring sources oregon human-caused activities similar amerciable golden mining, she noted that "several studies hold that the introduction of mining into a territory tends to importantly summation mercury levels successful the environment."

The villagers tested for this recently released survey were chiefly exposed to methylmercury, researchers found, a highly toxic signifier that accumulates successful the body.

"[The] top hazard is for large women and children: methylmercury tin transverse the placenta and impact the improvement of the processing baby's brain," Vega said. "This benignant of vulnerability is simply a superior nationalist wellness concern, adjacent if affected individuals bash not amusement contiguous symptoms."