According to Mining News Pro - The beauty and biodiversity of rainforests are nothing short of awe-worthy. We often catch ourselves mid-daydream about taking an adventure to experience it with our own eyes one day. On this World Rainforest Day, we celebrate these amazing ecosystems that are vital for the survival of life on Earth but caution how human impact may destroy them forever.
Nearly ten percent of all the deforestation occurring in the Brazilian Amazon between 2005 and 2015 came from mining activities, say researchers in a new study — a stunning statistic far higher than the 1 to 2 percent noted in previous global assessments. The reason for the difference is that past research only looked at the mines themselves, and not at the ancillary development that accompanies and surrounds the mines.
Using satellite data, the researchers found that deforestation from mining encompassed 11,670 square kilometers (roughly 4,500 square miles) between 2005 and 2015, an area twice the size of the state of Delaware. The startling level of Amazon deforestation, they say, demands immediate action on the part of mining companies and government — especially because Brazil’s Temer administration seems intent on opening vast swathes of the country to mining in the near future.
The international group of researchers, organized around the University of Vermont, published their findings in the journal Nature Communications. The research used satellite monitoring to study the fifty largest mining sites in the Amazon region, and analyzed the rates of deforestation in and around those sites between 2005 and 2015.
Strikingly, the study found that deforestation outside of and surrounding the mining-lease areas removes twelve times as many trees as within the lease boundaries. Further, this loss extends to as much as 70 kilometers (approximately 43 miles) from the lease areas as infrastructure such as roads, staff housing, and airports cut into the forest — as seen in this time-lapse satellite sequence.
“Our findings show that Amazon deforestation associated with mining extends remarkable distances from the point of mineral extraction,” said Gillian Galford, a study co-author with the Gund Institute and Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont (UVM).
Meanwhile, a preliminary study from Brazil’s space agency, INPE, found that deforestation in Brazil decreased 16 percent between August 2016 and July 2017. Laura Sonter, a co-author of the UVM study and also with the Gund Institute and Rubenstein School, warned that the INPE finding doesn’t mean things are fine: “The problem is that deforestation rates are still up over the last 3 years compared to years before that, and a drop in deforestation still means that 6,624 square kilometers [some 2,557 square miles] of Amazon forest was cleared [from August 2016 to July 2017]. Additionally, deforestation rates are expected to increase again next year, due to the current drought and expected rural fires.” Amazon wildfires are at record levels this year, with most of them caused by people.
Illegal Gold Mining Is Poisoning Amazon Forests with Mercury
After performing the first-ever measurement of terrestrial deposits of atmospheric methylmercury – the most toxic form of mercury -, an international team of researchers found that the highest levels of atmospheric mercury pollution in the world are now found in pristine areas of the Amazonian rainforest.
In a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications, the experts show that illegal gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon is causing exceptionally high levels of atmospheric mercury pollution in the nearby Los Amigos Biological Station.
According to the group, one stand of the old-growth forest was found to harbour the highest levels of mercury ever recorded, rivalling industrial areas where mercury is mined. Birds from this area have up to 12 times more mercury in their systems than birds from less polluted areas.
Atmospheric mercury is released when illegal miners burn, in open-fire ovens, the pellets they obtain after separating gold particles from river sediments using mercury. The high temperature separates the gold, which melts, from the mercury, which goes up in smoke. This mercury smoke ends up being washed into the soil by rainfall, deposited onto the surface of leaves or absorbed directly into the leaves’ tissues.
To measure this mercury, lead researcher Jacqueline Gerson and her team collected samples of air, leaf litter, soil and green leaves from the top of trees. They focused their collection on four types of environments: forested and deforested, near mining activity or far from mining activity. Two of the forested areas near mining activity are patches with small, scraggly trees, and the third is the Los Amigos Biological Station, a pristine old-growth forest that has never been touched.
Deforested areas, that would have received mercury solely through rainfall, had low levels of mercury regardless of their distance to the mining activity. Forested areas, which accumulate mercury both on and inside tree leaves, weren’t all the same. The four areas with scraggly trees, two near mining activity and two further away, had levels of mercury that resembled worldwide averages.
“We found that mature Amazonian forests near gold mining are capturing huge volumes of atmospheric mercury, more than any other ecosystem previously studied in the entire world,” Gerson said in a media statement.