Regulations on use of Mercury in the Amazon

Gold mining in the Amazon region, although brings economic benefits, faces a number of serious environmental problems that affect ecosystems on a global scale. This is because the use of mercury in gold mining activities makes it one of the biggest threats to the waters of the Amazon.

In this region, mercury is used in the separation of gold present in the form of dust extracted from the mud in the mines. The mercury is added mud, connecting thereby forming the gold amalgam is heated to evaporate the metal and the gold yield. Mercury vapor produced in the process as well as the remains of the metal present in the mud, contaminate rainwater and rivers. And when that happens can trigger a series of problems beginning in the environment and have severe consequences to the population. The mercury in the environment has high chances of entering the food chain of animals in the ecosystem, starting with the microorganisms, and reaching the population that eats contaminated fish, which is the main staple food of the inhabitants of the banks of polluted rivers. More troubling than that, is to know that mercury is one of the most toxic metals on the planet and can cause a number of disorders such as tremor, ataxia, dysarthria, among others, being highly dangerous for pregnant women and children. Mercury contamination happens for two main reasons: lack of environmental awareness in the mining and wholesome, and also because of the lack of enforcement of government legislation.

Faced with this worrying situation, we, Team UFAM_BRAZIL who were born and live in a city that is in the middle of the Amazon forest, we eat all kinds of fish almost every day since forever, and moreover, we are lucky to be always motivated to solve problems using synthetic Biology, we want to help in the development of technologies that enable economic advances without contamination and damage to the environment as well as making the application of synthetic biology a technological vanguard for the resolution of environmental problems.

With the "bio-detection and Bioremediation of Mercury" project we sat with the Secretary of State for the Environment (SDS) in order to fight together against the contamination of the metal that is so dangerous to our population, and propose an applicable solution to this. Although the use of mercury in mining is regulated by the State Council of the Environment (CEMAAM) by resolutions 011 and 014 published in 2012, mercury is still used very precariously in the mines throughout Amazonia, leading to chairman reopening the debate on the use of it in the mines, with the objective of evaluating what was the environmental impact to the mining activity. To do so, they began to invest in analysis and research for the advancement of this subject matter, taking into account the application of mercury treatment system using engineered bacteria capable of mercury bioremediate proposed this year for our project!

The following resolutions 2012 (which are under discussion) on the regulation of mining practices and use of mercury:

Resolution CEMAAM n° 11 of May 9th 2012

Resolution CEMAAM n° 14 of Oct 18th 2012