Illegal mercury use in Amazon reported to OAS
Agência Brasil reports that Brazil's Federal Public Prosecutor's Office presented a study to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on the health and environmental harm from mercury used in illegal Amazon gold mining, complementing a March report to the Commission's REDESCA rapporteur, who in March called for the human right to water in the Guiana Shield. Vaporized mercury contaminates rivers, fish, and the communities that eat them, and IBAMA says it restricts mercury use through 2024 licensing rules and enforcement, while 1989 decrees ban it except in licensed mining.
