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As the sun rises across Mexico’s Sierra Gorda nature reserve, a golden light illuminates its nearly 400,000 hectares of mountains, gorges and valleys.
Set amid this vast wilderness is the Bucareli mercury mine.
Just after dawn, a metal door to the mine opens. The morning’s silence is broken by the dull sound of a generator and workers traipsing to their posts.
Among them is Jose Vigil, one of 800 people in the region who mine mercury, a highly toxic substance.
But for Vigil and the other miners, the clock is ticking.
The Minamata Convention on Mercury, a Multilateral Environmental Agreement, is tackling mercury production. Mining the element will become illegal in Mexico and the rest of the world in 2032. This is leaving many miners worried about how they will support their families even as they grapple with the often-dire health risks posed by their profession.
“We’re running out of time,” says Vigil. “We are looking for other alternatives, other means to be able to survive…[but]…it is the only way to make money.”
With unemployment sitting at over 70 percent, Bucareli and its miners find themselves at a crossroads.
New livelihoods
In response, the Mexican government has launched a project to help 19 communities in the Sierra Gorda transition to alternate, mercury-free livelihoods. Led by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the project is executed by Mexico’s National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC).
“The message from the governments that ratified the Minamata Convention is clear,” says Sheila Aggarwal-Khan, director of UNEP’s Industry and Economy Division. “We must protect human health and the environment from the dangers of mercury while supporting miners to find sustainable, safer and economically viable alternatives.”
In Mexico, environmental impact assessments and community consultations supported by UNEP and INECC are unlocking government investment in sustainable livelihood alternatives for miners, while providing a basis for mercury-free local development strategies.
Next week marks the beginning of the fifth Minamata Convention on Mercury Conference of the Parties, the latest edition of an annual gathering. The event will cast a spotlight on the often-devastating effects of mercury.
The element is a neurotoxin and even at low levels of exposure, can cause nervous, digestive and immune system damage. It is particularly dangerous for pregnant women, sometimes causing miscarriage, and does not break down in the enviroment, instead accumulating in food chains.
From its original use in ancient cosmetics and alchemy to later applications in medical devices, electronics and most gold and silver mining, mercury has been used for centuries due to its versatility. UNEP News