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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
We cannot have eyes on all places at a time,” he says, adding that smugglers are “becoming smarter and smarter.”Capy, the Maroon mine owner, has run his mine near Brownsweg for 15 years. Just as most miners interviewed for this report, he hopes to abandon the mercury, but lacks proper guidance. “We are willing. If they say there is another way, we want to work with it,” Capy says. “But they [the government] say nothing; they teach us nothing.”The career miner’s argument is echoed by Naarendorp. “No one can be against Minamata,” she says, “but the moment you say we’re going to ban something, you have to come up with an alternative.” Capy’s mine in Suriname (image: Bram Ebus/InfoAmazonia)Many of the inland miners are hard workers, but uneducated, according to Naarendorp. She argues that the miners need not only to be educated, but also to be convinced about alternative or safe methods, which are often very costly or hard to access. “We all want to go-green,” she says, “but then it must be affordable.”Capy admits that they need to buy mercury on the black market. “There is no specific place where it can be bought, because it is prohibited, just like cocaine, marijuana, and ecstasy. This kind of thing you just find on the street because it is forbidden stuff.”*Some names have been changed to protect the identities of interviewees.This article is part of “MERCURY”, a production of InfoAmazonia, a network of journalists who investigate the main environmental issues in the nine countries of the Amazon. The investigation was conducted in four countries for over one year. The work was done in partnership with journalists from Armando.Info in Venezuela and Fantástico (TV Globo) in Brazil. Along with this special investigation, we will launch a documentary directed by Tom Laffay.The entire production is supported by the Rainforest Journalism Fund of the Pulitzer Center and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) The Netherlands committee.
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