The GEM Incubation Fund supports emerging research that strives to find solutions to the pressing development challenges of our time.
By Melanie Chan
In November 2023, the Harvard Center for International Development (CID) announced the award recipients of the inaugural GEM Incubation Fund, designed to support research that strives to find solutions to pressing development challenges. The recipients of the 2023 GEM Incubation Fund are pursuing research around the theme of climate change and international development, in line with the theme of CID's annual Global Empowerment Meeting. The report below is the second in a series of updates from research teams funded through the 2023 GEM Incubation Fund.
The Gold Magnet called Mercury
In the Madre de Dios region of Peru, liquid mercury is used as a magnet for tiny flecks of gold buried in the soil and silt, barely visible to the human eye. The mercury binds to these flecks, creating an amalgam that is easy to sift out, and once the mercury is burned off, what is left behind is a solid piece of gold.
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASM) is cheap, easy to learn, and incredibly toxic when done with mercury. It is also largely illegal. The , a broad multilateral agreement to strictly control the use of mercury, was ratified by Peru in 2016, and the import of mercury was banned in 2015. Mercury is known to cause cognitive impairment, damage to the kidneys and lungs, and developmental delays for children according to the . Mercury is also absorbed by trees and deposited into soil, and through microbial activity, can become an even more toxic form () when it is submerged in water.
But a pressure cooker of factors including lack of a for employment opportunities, lax and overstretched government , a vast shadow network of control and coercion by criminal actors (one ounce of gold now fetches nearly twice the price of an ounce of cocaine), and the skyrocketing price of gold in international markets as individuals and central banks worldwide are seeking to hedge against geopolitical and economic , means that ASM isn’t going away any time soon. In fact, the current price of gold is approaching $2,400 a troy ounce, with this year’s growth outpacing the S&P 500.
It is estimated that ASM accounts for of global gold production and contributes substantially to global emissions, dumping of mercury into the Madre de Dios annually. And for this global gold fever, it is the Amazon’s indigenous communities and environment that will pay the heaviest price.
Rainbow over Los Amigos River on the way to an uncontaminated sampling site.
Mapping the Extent of Mercury Contamination in the Amazon
As recipients of CID’s 2023 GEM Incubation Fund, ,, and at University of Washington, at Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, and and at of the Andes Amazon Fund have teamed up to measure the spatial extent and true impact of mercury contamination in the Amazon rainforest. They are working in collaboration with , an organization based on the ground in Peru.
Mining sites, where swaths of land where trees once stood, are now stripped and gaping with mercury contaminated , but mercury contamination isn't confined here. Remaining old-growth trees are doing with mercury what it does with carbon - it from the air and storing it in the forest ecosystem. Mercury is long lived, persisting for multiple decades into the future, but the extent of mercury contamination is hard to measure and little is known about its long-term effects on the forest.
The team’s aim is 3-pronged:
1) map the spatial extent of mercury contamination,
2) trace mercury movement through the base of the forest ecosystem
3) identify the effect contamination has on rates of plant photosynthesis.
Doing fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazonian jungle is challenging and physically demanding. The team has collected samples for analysis and deployed instruments and sensors that will continue to collect data. They have already determined that elevated levels of mercury are transported by wind from mining towns and spread over hundreds of kilometers in all directions.
Why This Matters
The research team is committed to sharing their findings well beyond academic journals and circles. Mercury contamination has implications all the way up the food chain, from plant productivity, to animal behavior and survival, and human exposure through food and medicine. Mapping and understanding mercury’s effects in the region is necessary, especially for those who protect, manage, and rely on that ecosystem. Policymakers also need to incorporate this foundational knowledge into conservation and climate-adaptation plans for the region. It is possible to mine gold without the use of mercury. The research team hopes their findings will help propel regulations and enforcement around the use of mercury in gold mining in the Madre de Dios region.
The Amazon rainforest has faithfully provided ecological services far beyond the borders of South America, absorbing of carbon dioxide each year. It is so biodiverse that you could go without finding a repeat of the same species of tree, and it is home to of all the known species on earth. It is no exaggeration to say that the Amazon rainforest has accrued an abundance of wealth that we have yet to fully measure, and its wellbeing is inextricably linked to the wellbeing of us all.
Image Credits
Dr. Rebecca Neumann
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