The effects of artisanal and small-scale gold mining in theAmazon Basin

Ilan Zugman - 43320330

School of Geography, Planning, and Environmental Management

The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland

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07/05/2015

Table of contents

1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………Page 3

2. Gold extraction……………………………………………………………..Page 4

3. Concept map………………………………………………………………..Page 5

4. Water pollution in the Tapajos River Basin…………………………...Page 7

5. Mercury emissions………………………………………………………...Page 8

6. Options to address the water contamination problem in the Tapajos River Basin area……………………………………………………………….Page 9

6.1 Policies and regulation…………………………………………………..Page 9

6.2 Mercury substitutes………………………………………………………Page 9

6.3 Educational programs………………………………………………….Page 10

7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………Page 12

8. References…………………………………………………………………Page 13

9. Criteria sheet………………………………………………………………Page 15

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1. Introduction

Brazil is a country rich in natural resources. Within

these resources there are some that deserve to be

highlighted such as: forests, water, oil, bauxite, copper,

iron, and gold, among others. Between all these resources

the one that definitely call the attention of almost any

person in the world is gold. A mineral highly wanted and

with a great commercial value.

Annually Brazil produces about 30 tons of gold. This

number put the country among the biggest producers in the

world. However, from these 30 tons, 8 tons come from

artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in the Tapajos

River Basin area (Brazilian Amazon). The ASGM involves the

employment of about 100 million people around the world and

10% of this number is at the Amazon Basin (Sousa et al

2009).

In 1980 the land clearance area of the Brazilian

Amazon was less than 300.000 square kilometres (6% of the

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whole area). However, in less than thirty years the amount

of deforestation has tripled, and one of the main reasons

for this is the ASGM (Souza et al 2011). Deforestation is

not the only impact cause by artisanal mining, according to

Sousa et al (2009), if 8 tons of gold are produced, the

double of this amount of mercury (utilized during the

amalgamation process) is released to the environment. In

high concentration mercury is extremely toxic for all the

living beings.

The Tapajos River has 2.000 km length, and is located

in two Brazilian states

(Para and Amazonas). It

is the fifth largest

river of the Amazon

Basin and contributes

with 6% of the total

amount of water. The

artisanal miners are

in the majority poor

people with lack of any knowledge and that have mining as

the only way to sustain their families. The big scale

mining sector faces a period of changes since the

legislation nowadays is stricter than it was in the past.

Albeit, the small scale mining is not following this trend

as 99% of the workers in the Tapajos River have been

working without the environmental and mining permits

required by law (Sousa et al 2011).

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Figure 1 - Tapajos River

Source: Google Maps

The most relevant impacts originated by the ASGM are:

biodiversity loss, soil modifications, emissions, human

health and water contamination (mercury use). Considering

that there are a lot of small communities living in the

Amazon Basin and water is an essential resource, the

contamination of this resource has a massive impact. Thus,

this essay will explain in more details the effects of ASGM

in the water, how the water is contaminated, as well as

investigates and proposes solutions for this delicate

situation.

2. Gold extraction

The gold extraction process varies a lot depending of

where the gold is located. Usually artisanal mining

extracts the secondary ore (close to the surface), whereas

big mining companies search for the primary ore (found at

depth and harder to extract). The two most used techniques

by artisanal miners are dredging of the river bottom

sediments or hydraulic monitors. The first one consists in

a system that dredges the gravel from the bottom of the

river and through a pumping system this material goes to

sluice boxes for separation. The second method is when a

high-pressure application of water is used to ‘ uidize’fl

loosely consolidated materials. This method can result in

the diversion of rivers and the creation of “beaches”

(Hinton et al 2003).

In both processes after the collection of the

materials, mercury is utilized. The metal is highly

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available, easy to manage and have a low cost. Hg can link

to other metals to form amalgams, which is fundamental in

artisanal mining, where the tiny gold grains need to be

separated from dredged sediment riverbeds or excavated

soil. The small grains clump together and can be separated

more easily. In the end, the contaminated debris are dumped

on the ground or in the river. Another feature of the

mercury is that when heated or burned the element

evaporates to the atmosphere remaining only the gold (Malm,

1988).

3. Concept map

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Figure 2 - Concept map

In order to achieve a holistic view of the issue a

concept map was drawn. This way it is possible to break the

problem into small pieces and therefore facilitating to

find solutions. Solving the water contamination is a hard

task that involves much more than just the mining sphere.

Drawing this map allows to conclude that the problem is

connected to many other areas that without the map would

have been hard to perceive.

The concept map above was divided in four major areas:

ecological (green), organisational (red), operational

(orange) and major stakeholders (purple). The map shows

that to tackle the problem of the water contamination many

sector will have to work together. The main connections

that this map displays are:

- The water pollution can kill a lot of fish as well

intoxicate them. Human health can be damaged by eating

fish with high levels or mercury or even suffering

with the lack of protein;

- COSAMA and COSANPA (sanitation companies from the

states of Amazonas and Para respectively) image ca be

destroyed by the media causing many financial

prejudices;

- The touristic activity in the region can significantly

decreased due to the reduction of biodiversity and

safety;

- The lack of legislation and enforces deeply

contributes to the artisanal mining activity raise

without any difficulty;7

- Population and NGO’s will complain about the quality

of the water and the government will have to spend to

treat the water;

- Due to the shortage of resources of the government no

educational programs are feasible and therefore the

lack of education remains as one of the biggest causes

of the water contamination.

The concept map also allows the construction of macro

and micro aspects which are directly related to the issue.

The macro aspects related to this case are:

- It is essential to create new laws specific to address

this situation as well as enforce them;

- The population will pressure the government and the

sanitation companies for measures to address the

situation and they will not vote anymore in those

politicians;

- Farming and agriculture are losing their space for the

promise that mining activities will maximize the

family income and therefore it might affect negatively

the rural economy;

- In poor areas people have less access to

preservatives. Thus, with a growing population the use

of children labour is very common and rudimentary

mining sector is seen as the most profitable option.

The micro aspects related to this case are:

- The Tapajos Basin is a very important river for the

some cities and the local communities as it supplies

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water and food for this entire people. In addition,

the area has a high biodiversity;

- As they are paying taxes for a dubious water quality,

customers will complain about the quality of the water

and they will start to look for different sources;

- The sanitation companies will have to invest money in

new technologies, planning and education for cleaning

and enhancing the water of the region.

4. Water pollution in the Tapajos River Basin

According to Sousa et al (2009), approximately 70% of

the mercury utilized by artisanal and small-scale gold

mining goes to the aquatic ecosystem because of the

amalgamation process. The amount of mining areas within the

Tapajos River Basin is one of the largest in the world, as

it concentrates miners in a region that have around 98.000

square kilometres. This area has three main villages

(Creporizao, Creporizinho, and Sao Chico) where all the

workers live (Sousa et al 2009).

Rodrigues-Filho et al (2004) conducted a research

among the Tapajos area in order to discover and analyse the

impacts related to the amount of mercury used. The research

consisted in collecting 658 samples from water, sediments

and soil in the Tapajos mining locations. They found that

more than 50.000 square kilometres of soil had the presence

of tailings containing mercury and the concentration was

about 4 to 300 ppm mercury. The river sediments collected

had 7 to 14 ppm mercury. The research also encountered a

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high level of mercury in the fishes. 73 fishes around 15-18

cm were sampled and the average of mercury found 3 mg of

mercury per fish. One fish had the astonishing amount 21mg.

The results showed how dangerous the situation is as the

Brazilian Law stipulates a maximum concentration for human

consumption in 0, 5 mg.

Another study described by Hilson (2003) also found

high mercury level in fishes and in the environment. The

research stressed that the mercury concentration in the

fishes collected recently are still as high as the ones

sampled in 1990 (when ASGM reached its peak in Brazil). The

amount of mercury was also far from the usual in lakes and

floodplains.

5. Mercury emissions

During the amalgamation process the mercury is heated

to facilitate the gold recovery. Nevertheless, a

considerable amount of this mercury evaporates to the

atmosphere. Hilson (2003) pointed that around 50% to 60% of

the mercury is lost to

the atmosphere during

roasting. In Brazil

during the peak of the

mining activities (1990)

this value was even

higher since 80% (around

100 to 180 tons per

year) of the mercury emissions in the country were coming

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Figure 3 - Mercury emissions by sector

Source: http://old.briloon.org/research/research-programs/tropical-program/asgm

from the gold mining industry. Nowadays that amount had

decreased to 30% (11 to 30 tons per year) of the total

mercury emissions from Brazil.

The quantity of Hg released to the atmosphere is

directly connected to the amount of mercury found in soils,

lakes, sediments and fishes. Hg has a long resilience time

(100 years to 1.000 years) and thus another issue is the

leaching process of the mercury which is accumulated in the

soils. With the high conversion of forests into pastures

and with the raise of the logging industry the leaching

process is faster and can decrease the soil quality as well

as the poison the aquifers (Hilson 2003).

The same research mentioned above conducted by

Rodrigues et al (2004) have also analysed the effects of

the mercury emissions around the Tapajos River Basin

region. They collected urine and hair samples for the

workers in the amalgamation methods. The level of mercury

found in the hair was about 3 ppm, whereas in urine was

78.5 µg. The acceptable amount of mercury in the urine

should be under 5 µg. The research also concluded that

because of the exposure of the mercury vapour 50% of the

miners have paraesthesia. Other issues related to the

health situation of the people working in mining areas

were: lack of concentration and balance as well as tremors.

6. Options to address the water contamination problem in

the Tapajos River Basin area

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Since the impacts with the worst consequences come

from the amalgamation stage the focus of the improvements

should be for this stage. Legislation is another

fundamental topic which can help solving this problem. It

is important to say that the majority of the workers have a

very low education and live in poor conditions. Therefore

the resistance of changes is a challenge to be faced as

miners will have to be convinced that the new procedures

will be effective, easy to use and with a low cost.

6.1 Policies and regulation

As it was stated before 99% of the workers in the

Tapajos River have been working without the environmental

and mining permits required by law (Sousa et al 2011). This

information shows how important is to change the policies

and regulation system in this area. Sousa et al (2011)

evaluated 20 Brazilian laws for protecting the natural

resources and regulating the artisanal and small-scale gold

mining sector. The first problem that they found was the

bureaucracy and difficulty to obtain the mining permits. In

order to obtain it the government requires environmental

impact assessments and other documents that people with low

knowledge and resources just cannot provide it. Therefore

it is easier to stay illegal.

They concluded that the laws exists, however since the

mining activity occurs in remote areas the government does

not provide enough resources (vehicles, equipment,

employees) for enforcing the existing legislation. Other

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issue is the lack of educational programs and incentives

for the workers by the government to modify their mining

style. Therefore the primary objectives by the government

should be to simplify the legislation, increase the

communication with the miners and provide mechanisms for

enforcing the legislation.

6.2 Mercury substitutes

Mercury is pointed as the main contributor for the

environmental impacts related to ASGM. Since this metal has

a great effectiveness in gold recovery, is cheap and easy

to use and find it is by far the favourite material for

gold recovery by the miners.

Cyanide is considered the most promising substitute of

the mercury as percentage of gold recovery using this

material is higher than mercury (Veiga et al 2009).

Nevertheless, if not properly managed cyanide can be more

dangerous than mercury for the environment and humans.

After Chernobyl, an accident involving the use of cyanide

for the gold recovery in Romania is considered the worst

environmental occurrence. A breach in a dam containing

tailings rich in cyanide released a huge amount of toxins

in the rivers. This accident left many people without

potable water and changed the fishing industry deeply. The

effects from this accident remain until nowadays (Soldán et

al 2001).

Another strategy to extinguish the mercury use is

called froth flotation. The barriers for this technique are

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the high cost and the need of highly skilled employees.

Froth flotation basically consists in the use of chemical

surfactants to recover the particles of the desired mineral

(Hinton et al 2003). A different technique which has been

successfully implemented is called magnetic removal. With a

gold recovery rate about 99% this method uses a hand magnet

to remove non-desired heavy minerals and by blowing and

tapping other residues are removed. It is fast and cheap

option for gold recovery, however this procedure depends of

the characteristics of the gold for achieving efficacy

(Hinton et al 2003).

The last alternative is a technique named mill

leaching. Instead of using amalgamation or flotation the

procedure consists in the leaching and grinding for

recovering the mineral. When compared to other procedures

the recovery rate of this technique was faster and cleaner

than the others. Since it is a relatively new method, more

tests are necessary for proving its efficacy (Veiga et al

2009).

6.3 Educational programs

A remarkable example from an educational program is

the one implemented in the Tapajos River Basin in 2002

which was sponsored by the United Nations Development

Programme's Global Environment Facility. The name of the

project is Global Mercury Project (GMP) and its main

objective is diminishing the amount of mercury released in

the environment. Due to the quantity of mining sites in the

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area this region in Brazil was the first one to receive

this program. More than 4.000 were trained by a group of

educators in the mining sites. In order to evaluate the

success of the training 20 performance indicators were

established (Sousa et al 2009).

The figure above shows the 20 indicators developed to

access the effectiveness of the program. The indicators

were divided in 5 big groups: legalization of the

activities, procedures to improve the gold recovery,

techniques to protect the natural resources, how to reduce

the mercury use and ways to enhance health quality. Among

all of these indicators one that deserves special attention

is the use of retorts. Retorts are capable of recovering

the mercury during the burning process as well as reducing15

Figure 4 - Performance indicators

Source: Sousa et al (2009)

the miner exposure to the mercury vapour, Therefore 60

retorts were donated by the GMP. As gold recovery

technologies are expensive and mining permits involve a

massive bureaucracy, within the 5 groups the best results

were found in the last three. To sum up, during 120 days of

lessons, training and practicing, an improvement of about

30% was achieved. They estimated that because of the

program the reduction of the mercury released in the region

was in 10% (Sousa et al 2009).

7. Conclusion

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining is a profitable

activity and is the only source of livelihood for many

people. As a developing country Brazil is not able to give

up of such a rentable industry. On the other hand, the

country cannot permit the contamination and degradation of

one of its most important Basins. In the direction of

changing this reality there is still a long path to make.

This research showed that environmental awareness is

increasing and how detrimental to the environment mining

activities can be. Hence, the research also stressed

feasible ways to reduce some of those impacts. According to

this essay the best options for addressing the water

contamination are: environmental education, investments and

researches in new technologies and government will have to

increase.

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8. References

Adler Miserendino, R., Bergquist, B.A., Adler, S.E.,

Guimarães, J.R.D., Lees, P.S.J., Niquen, W., Velasquez-

López, P.C. & Veiga, M.M. 2013, "Challenges to measuring,

monitoring, and addressing the cumulative impacts of

artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Ecuador",

Resources Policy, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 713-722.

Hilson, G.M. 2003, The socio-economic impacts of artisanal

and small-scale mining in developing countries, A.A.

Balkema, Exton PA; Lisse [Netherlands].

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Hinton, J.J., Veiga, M.M. & Veiga, A.T.C. 2003, "Clean

artisanal gold mining: a utopian approach?", Journal of

Cleaner Production, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 99-115.

Malm, O. 1998, "Gold Mining as a Source of Mercury Exposure

in the Brazilian Amazon", Environmental research, vol. 77,

no. 2, pp. 73-78.

Rodrigues-Filho, S., Castilhos, Z.C., Santos, R., Yallouz,

A.V., Nascimento, F., Egler, S.G., Peregovich, B., Almeida

Riberio, R.A., et al. 2004. Environmental and Health

Assessment in Two Small-scale Gold Mining Areas in Brazil

(Sao Chico and Creporizinho). Technical Report by CETEM to

UNIDO, RT2004-004-02. Rio de Janeiro, 156 pp.

(http://www.globalmercuryproject.org)

Soldán, P., Pavonič, M., Bouček, J. & Kokeš, J. 2001, "Baia

Mare Accident—Brief Ecotoxicological Report of Czech

Experts", Ecotoxicology and environmental safety, vol. 49,

no. 3, pp. 255-261.

Sousa, R.N. & Veiga, M.M. 2009, "Using Performance

Indicators to Evaluate an Environmental Education Program

in Artisanal Gold Mining Communities in the Brazilian

Amazon", Ambio, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 40-46.

Sousa, R., Veiga, M., Van Zyl, D., Telmer, K., Spiegel, S.

& Selder, J. 2011, "Policies and regulations for Brazil’s

artisanal gold mining sector: analysis and

recommendations", Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 19,

no. 6, pp. 742-750.

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Veiga, M.M., Nunes, D., Klein, B., Shandro, J.A.,

Velasquez, P.C. & Sousa, R.N. 2009, "Mill leaching: a

viable substitute for mercury amalgamation in the artisanal

gold mining sector?", Journal of Cleaner Production, vol.

17, no. 15, pp. 1373-1381.

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9. Criteria sheet

Mini research project – Assessment Criteria and StandardsName __________________________________ Course Code___________________________________

In your paper you have achieved the following standards:

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TOTAL

/100

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Criteria/Standards Outstanding Good Sound Not quite there Needs more workContent

/30

Quality of research rationale:conceptualisation, issueidentification, scope and justification, research question, aim/objectives

Comprehensively defined the issue/problem (and thescope of the research)and developed in-depthinnovative insights into the context of the issue. You demonstrated a thorough understandingof the research in thecontext of the discipline.

Explicitly defined the issue/problem andconveyed valuable insights into the context and an understanding of the significance to the discipline.

Defined the issue/problem although insights into the issue in the context of theproblem are not fully developed.

Limited knowledge and/or understandingof issues, themes and concepts. Limited engagement with the topic and central idea.

Partial evidence of knowledge and/or understanding of significant issues, themes andconcepts. Little or no engagement with relevant topic and central ideas.

All aspects of the research task covered.Logically and succinctly constructedthe aim/objectives andoutline of the work and the research plan is directly aligned tothe problem.

Logically constructedthe aim and outline of the work and demonstrates a research plan that explicitly addresses the problem.

Provided an aim/objectives andoutline of the work and demonstrated some link to the research problem.

Poor coverage, with one or more aspects missed e.g. inadequately definedaim/objectives and sketchy outline of the work that does not necessarily linkto all aspects of the problem.

Major omissions. Provided an unclear aim and outline of the work with few or irrelevant links to the research problem.

Process

/50

Critically evaluate literature

Evidence of extensive reading and research. Specific reference made to a range of relevant literature. Relevant literature used critically and analytically, presenting a balance of perspectives.

Evidence of wide reading and research.Specific reference made to a range of relevant literature. Evidence of critical and analytical use ofrelevant literature.

Some evidence of reading and research beyond lecture material. Sound use of relevant research to support findings.

Minimal reading and research. Limited use of relevant research, with many key sources not included, demonstrating limited engagement with readings.

Inadequate readingand research, and/or research isevident but it is inappropriate or irrelevant. Superficial coverage of the literature.

Integrity ofmethodology

Explicitly and insightfully justifiedthe choice and use of research methods, methodology and analysis techniques.

Justified in some detail the choice anduse of the research methods, methodology and analysis techniques.

Listed and partially described the research methods, methodology and analysis techniques.

Provided a superficial or flawed coverage of the methods, methodology and analysis techniques such that the research approach isdifficult to follow.

Presented limited coverage of the methods, methodology or analysis techniques with little or no engagement with the available literature.

Critical analysis andinterpretation

Extremely high level of interpretative and analytical ability, evidenced by thorough

Very high level of interpretative and analytical ability, evidenced by

Substantial level of interpretative and analytical ability, evidenced

Some evidence of analysis and interpretation. Rudimentary analysis

Little or no evidence of analysis or interpretation.

Other comments:

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