Human Practice

Gold mining in the Amazon region, although brings economic benefits, faces a number of serious environmental problems that affect ecosystems on a global scale. Due to mercury in gold mining activities, waters of the Amazon rivers faces one of the biggest threats: contamination in the whole life chain, being harmful from microorganisms to vertebrates.

Mercury is used for separate gold from debris, being added to mud, forming amalgam (complexed gold), then it is heated evaporating the metal and revealing the gold. Mercury vapor produced in this process as well as the remains of the metal present in the dirt, contaminate rainwater and rivers. Triggering a series of problems environmental issues ending up in innumerous human health hazards. This all occur as mercury in the environment has high chance of entering the food chain of animals in the ecosystem, contaminating natural stocks like fishes, which are the main protein source of the inhabitants of the banks rivers. More concerning though, is it know that mercury is one of the most toxic metals on the planet and can cause a number of neurological disorders (eg. tremor, ataxia, dysarthria, comportamental issues), being highly dangerous for pregnant women and children. Mercury contamination happens for two main reasons: lack of both environmental law enforcement and technology.

The Team UFAM_BRAZIL who are living in a city that is in the middle of the Amazon forest, and eating all kinds of fish almost every day since forever, is very worried about this situation!

Moreover, we are lucky to be always motivated to solve problems using Synthetic Biology, we want to help and develop technologies that can enable advances in gold mining without contaminating and damaging the environment, therefore our statement for this year’s project is:

SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY AS BIOTECH TOOL FOR RESOLUTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS.

For that we took several actions as part of the Human Practices.