Toxic mercury poisoning the Amazon

Alongside the all-too-visible deforestation, the Amazon is facing an invisible but increasing threat from mercury pollution according to a new WWF report released today at the Second Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury in Geneva, Switzerland. Healthy Rivers, Healthy People highlights the dangers mercury pollution poses across the Amazon and calls for urgent action to reduce the use of mercury in small-scale gold mining to protect the world's largest river system and the people and species that depend on it.

According to the report, mercury, classified as "one of the top ten chemicals of major public health concern" by the World Health Organization (WHO), is estimated to have negatively affected the health of over 1.5 million people in the region already, while threatening the health and livelihoods of millions more through air and water pollution and plant and animal contamination.

"The mercury pollution crisis in the Amazon is unfortunately both invisible and largely ignored despite growing evidence of the dangers it poses for people and wildlife across the river system," said Jordi Surkin, Director of WWF's Amazon Coordination Unit. "Furthermore, the most vulnerable victims are indigenous peoples and local communities – and tens of thousands of unique species."

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-toxic-mercury-poisoning-amazon.html#jCp

Posted by admin on Jan 3 2019. Filed under No Mercury. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry