GNV News, 18 June 2026

As global demand for gold grows, mercury pollution linked to artisanal and small-scale gold mining also appears to be on the rise, threatening health and livelihoods worldwide. Global gold demand exceeded 5,000 tonnes in 2025 for the first time, reaching an estimated value of US$555 billion. Artisanal and small-scale mining produces around 12 to 15 percent of the world’s gold. It is a major source of income in many low-income communities, directly employing an estimated 10 million to 20 million people worldwide, including around 4 million to 5 million women and children.

In artisanal and small-scale gold mining, mercury is commonly used because it is inexpensive and effective in separating gold from crushed ore. It binds with the gold to form a mercury-gold amalgam, which miners burn to evaporate the mercury and recover the gold. Such mining accounts for an estimated 37 percent of annual human-generated mercury releases.

Mercury-dependent gold mining releases more than 2,000 tonnes of mercury annually through toxic vapour and contaminated mining waste. Nearly all mercury used in the extraction process enters the air, water or soil, exposing miners, their families and nearby communities.

Women face particular risks because while men tend to mine the ore, it is often women who handle mercury during gold processing, frequently storing mercury or burning mercury-gold mixtures near their homes. Monika Stankiewicz, Executive Secretary of the Minamata Convention on Mercury (Note-1), raised the concern during the Eighth Global Environment Facility Assembly, held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, from 30 May to 6 June 2026.

During pregnancy, mercury in the mother’s bloodstream can cross the placenta, enter fetal circulation and reach the developing brain. Higher prenatal exposure has been associated with impaired learning, memory and motor development in children.

Countrywide data on mercury exposure among women remain limited, particularly because of illegal mining. However, local studies indicate substantial risks. Artisanal and small-scale gold mining directly employs more than 1.2 million people and supports another 7.2 million indirectly in Tanzania, for example. The sector consumes an estimated 13.2 to 24.4 tonnes of mercury annually. A 2023 study involving 1,056 pregnant women in northwestern Tanzania found that 76.5% had blood-mercury levels above the study’s referenced biomonitoring value.

Note- 1 : The Minamata Convention on Mercury was adopted in 2013 and is named after Minamata, Japan, where industrial mercury discharges caused widespread poisoning beginning in the 1950s. The treaty addresses mercury mining, trade, use, emissions and disposal. The convention calls for measures to reduce mercury use in artisanal and small-scale gold mining and to promote safer, mercury-free alternatives.

Learn more about illegal gold mining → “Peru: Illegal gold mining entangling the world”

Learn more about expansion of illegal gold mining in Costa Rica→ “Costa Rica: Expansion of Illegal Gold Mining”

A woman pans for gold near Barrick Gold’s North Mara mine in Tanzania in October 2012. (Photo: Plenty’s Paradox / Flickr / CC BY-NC 2.0)