The Hidden Cost of Buying Gold | Claudia Vega | TED

Since I was little, I always loved nature.

I always loved the feeling of being in a forest.

For me, the forest is more valuable than gold.

My name is Claudia Vega and I work in the Peruvian Amazon.

I'm studying mercury contamination due to artisanal gold mining in Madre de Dios.

I think people are not aware that sometimes the gold that you buy maybe is poisoning the rainforest in the Amazon or other tropical areas.

About 20 percent of the gold produced in the world come from artisanal gold mining.

It's not that small. And when you say artisanal, it's not because it's natural.

It's called artisanal because they don't use fancy equipment.

They have a very, like, rustic way. People have been doing that since the gold rush in California.

They were using mercury. So the technique hasn't advanced that much since then.

Mercury is used because it's an easy way to extract the gold.

So what the miners do is, the gold is like, in the sandy form, and it's usually in the sediment of the rivers.