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A boom in wildcat artisanal gold mining in Bolivia's Amazon has triggered rising tensions due to a surge in mercury consumption (mercury is mixed with gold-containing materials forming an amalgam which is then heated to liberate the precious metal) - In Bolivia's Amazon, wildcat gold mining boom stokes tension over environment

Mercury is toxic as hell. And Bolivia is now ranked the world's top importer of the noxious chemical element.
Officials and indigenous leaders are now worried about how the mining is impacting the local environment and waterways, and encroaching on indigenous lands as has happened in the Amazon in Peru and Brazil, with miners increasingly emboldened.

"We truly are totally polluted here," said Isidro Flores, a leader of the Correo indigenous community that lives next to the river. "You can't even take a bath or drink. We used to fish in the river and now we can't, everything is polluted."