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  • Mercury Treaty Fails to Address the Gold Mining Crisis

    Ban on mercury in dental fillings is a positive step but small-scale gold mining will remain the largest global contributor to mercury pollution without urgent action
    Friday, 07 November 2025

    Geneva-Despite the growing crisis of mercury contamination in the Amazon, Africa and parts of Asia caused by mercury use in small-scale gold mining (also called artisanal and small-scale gold mining, ASGM), at the Sixth Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention this week delegates failed to take strong action toward amending the Convention to ban this use of mercury. The concerns are especially urgent in Latin America, where food sources of Indigenous Peoples are widely contaminated by mercury from ASGM. A recent IPEN study of women in Indigenous communities in Peu and Nicaragua found nearly all women had a mercury body burden that exceeded safe limits by several fold.  

    In a positive note, following a decade-long effort by the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry and supported by many IPEN members, delegates agreed to phase-out mercury in dental fillings by 2034. But the Convention’s articles to control mercury use in small-scale mining remain weak and rely on the slow development and implementation of government National Action Plans. Organised crime, corrupt officials, police and military, and armed factions controlling gold mines exploit this weakness, and mercury continues to pour into the gold mining areas.  The growing crisis has been exacerbated by skyrocketing gold prices that are fuelling the most tremendous gold rush of modern times.

    IPEN Co-Chair, Goldman Prize Winner, and ASGM expert Yuyun Ismawati said, “It is concerning that the worst mercury poisoning tragedy 70 years ago in one country is now seen in more than 60 countries, with the latest gold rush. To make mercury history, strong commitments from Parties are needed. The amendments to the Convention should start by prohibiting the use of mercury for ASGM, closing cinnabar mining sites, and ending the mercury trade. Eight years after entering into force, the COP should signal a more substantial commitment to prioritise health over gold.”

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  • Interventions

    Intervention on Mercury-Added Cosmetics

    Presented by Chinkie Peliño-Golle, EcoWaste Coalition and IPEN

    Thank you, Mr. President. I am speaking on behalf of the EcoWaste Coalition in the Philippines and IPEN. 

  • Mercury Pollution from Oil and Gas

    Sunday, 2 November 2025 - 7:39pm

     The extraction of fossil fuels is well-known to cause significant emissions of toxic pollutants, but one chemical release from oil and gas production is less well studied. This briefing explores mercury rleeases from oil and gas producton.

    Read the briefing, below.

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  • Mercury Treaty COP6

    Global mercury pollution has been recognised as a major problem that can only be tackled effectively by international regulation and government cooperation. Contamination by mercury, particularly in Indigenous People's communities, has been recognized as a human rights violation. Mercury is a hazardous neurotoxin that can cause many health problems in humans, and most exposure is caused by dietary impacts such as eating contaminated fish where mercury bioaccumulates. 

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  • Ending Mercury Pollution: The Need to Strengthen the Mercury Treaty

    Thursday, 23 October 2025 - 1:24pm

    The negotiation of the Minamata Convention resulted in two significant weaknesses in the Convention’s implementation: the ongoing trade in mercury and allowing mercury to be used in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM).

    The Treaty needs to be strengthened with amendments that:

    • End the legal global mercury trade, and
    • Establish a phase-out date of 2032 for the allowable use of mercury in artisanal small-scale gold mining (ASGM)

    Read more in the briefing, below.

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  • The Global Mercury Trade

    Thursday, 23 October 2025 - 1:12pm

    IPEN warns that the use of mercury in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) continues to be the leading global source of mercury pollution. To achieve significant reductions in mercury use in ASGM, it will be necessary to amend the Minamata Convention to end the trade in mercury (which is currently permitted) and to establish a 2032 phase-out date for ASGM as an allowable use of mercury. 

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  • Mercury Treaty

    Quick Views - Mercury Treaty COP6

    Wednesday, 15 October 2025 - 5:01am

    The Sixth Conference of the Parties (COP) of the Minamata Convention on Mercury (Mercury Treaty) will take place in Geneva from November 3-7, 2025. A number of important decisions will be discussed and are covered in these IPEN quick views.

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  • Mercury

    Indigenous Women in Peru and Nicaragua Face Mercury Contamination from Small-Scale Gold Mining

    Ahead of Minamata Convention on Mercury COP-6, new study finds mercury body-burden levels pose potential harm to the fetus in women of childbearing age
    Tuesday, 14 October 2025

    Contamination by mercury used in small-scale gold mining has resulted in high mercury levels in Indigenous women in communities downstream from gold mining operations in Peru and Nicaragua, according to a new study by IPEN. The study found that almost all women tested (99%) had body levels of mercury above the safety threshold recommended recently by experts, and most (88%) had levels above the current US EPA safety levels. Next month, the Minamata Convention on Mercury holds its sixth Conference of Parties meeting, and today IPEN is co-hosting a pre-COP webinar to highlight the concerns around mercury used in gold mining. 

    Small-scale gold mining (sometimes called “artisanal” small-scale gold mining or ASGM) continues to rely on the use of mercury, a toxic metal known to impact the developing fetus with potentially lifelong effects on children’s intellectual and physical development. Mercury contamination from such gold mining operations is the leading contributor to global mercury pollution, with toxic impacts on Indigenous peoples, workers, children, and local communities around the world. Previous studies have concluded that mercury contamination of fish in waterways by small-scale mining is the likely cause of high mercury levels found in Indigenous Peoples living even hundreds of kilometers downstream from mining operations. 

    The Minamata Convention on Mercury provides regulations for some uses of the substance, but the use of mercury in small-scale gold mining continues to be permitted. IPEN and other environmental, Indigenous rights, health, and human rights groups have called for the Convention to be amended to phase-out mercury in gold mining and end the mercury trade. The Convention Conference of Parties (COP) will meet this November 3-7 in Geneva. 

    As Dr. Marcos Orellana, UN Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights states in the foreword to the report, "The human rights and environmental injustices caused by mercury use in small-scale gold mining have been widely documented. The ongoing allowable use of mercury in small-scale gold mining is compromising the right to clean food sources of millions of people around the world."  

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  • Mercury Exposure of Women in Two Latin American Gold Mining Countries

    Tuesday, 14 October 2025 - 7:48am

    Mercury contamination continues to undermine the rights to life, health and a clean, healthy and sustainable environment of Indigenous peoples, workers, children and local communities around the world. By far, the main contributor to mercury pollution globally is the use of mercury in small-scale gold mining. It is time to prohibit the trade in, and use of, mercury for the sake of our health and the health of our planet. 

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  • Mercury

    Massive Amounts of Mercury for Gold Mining are Smuggled from Mexico, Polluting the Amazon and Threatening Indigenous Peoples

    Amending the Minamata Mercury Treaty is Urgently Needed to Protect Health, the Environment, and Indigenous Rights
    Thursday, 24 July 2025

    Revelations of massive mercury smuggling were released today in reports noting that the government of Peru has confiscated a large shipment of mercury destined for use in small-scale gold mining (often called “artisanal” and small-scale gold mining or ASGM) in the Amazon. The capture by Peruvian authorities is the largest seizure of mercury ever reported by an Amazonian country and one of the largest ever reported in the world. 

    A report by the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) also released today shows that the flow of illegal mercury into Amazonian countries over the past 4 years amounts to at least 200 tons, the largest such flow ever documented. Mercury from Mexico destined for illegal gold mining in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia has drawn attention to the urgent need to amend the Minamata convention on mercury to close loopholes in mercury mining, trade, and its use in small-scale gold mining.

    IPEN Co-chair and ASGM expert Yuyun Ismawati from the Indonesian civil society group Nexus3 said, “IPEN calls on delegates to the upcoming meeting of the Minamata Convention on Mercury to close the loopholes that allow the ongoing trade and use of mercury in ASGM.  Confronting mercury smuggling successfully means taking mercury off the market and denying smugglers the ability to move this toxic metal freely across national boundaries.” 

    Mercury used in ASGM is the largest global contributor of mercury contamination, with millions of people impacted from the health effects. Numerous studies have found mercury used in small-scale gold mining is linked to serious health problems and physical symptoms among workers and people in surrounding communities, including tremors, loss of muscle coordination, memory problems, vision disorders, kidney dysfunction, respiratory problems, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain.  Mercury exposure is also linked to serious and often irreversible impacts on children’s brain development. 

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