The ongoing indiscriminate use of mercury in gold mining in parts of the Amazon having come into sharp focus in the electoral campaign exchanges between the still Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his political rival Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, a local miner familiar with the gold-mining industry in parts of Brazil has told the Stabroek Business that any expectation that a change in government in Brasilia is likely to bring an end to the use of mercury in gold recovery is nothing more than a “silly dream.”
Speaking with the Stabroek Business in Georgetown earlier this week, the one-time Mazaruni miner who says that he is still “very much in the business” said that policymakers and artisanal miners live in “two different worlds” insofar as the use of mercury is concerned. “When political noises come into contact with realities that have to do with whether people feed their families or not, only one side will ever win”, he said.
