The shadow of mercury: Charque’s fight against mining pollution in the Bolivian Amazon.
After a two-hour boat ride on the Beni River from the port of Rurrenabaque and a 20-minute walk through the jungle, visitors are greeted by the indigenous people of Charque with a plate of fried fish. This is the only way they eat fish in this small town in the Bolivian Amazon, after they were told that the results of a medical analysis confirmed the presence of mercury in the river dwellers, caused by mining pollution in the surrounding area. The doctors reportedly told them that cooking oil could help reduce mercury levels in food.
Far from benefiting from illegal gold mining, the Charqueños have rejected three offers by mining companies to mine gold in their territory. This categorical refusal has not prevented the contamination they suffer today, but it has made them reaffirm their veto on mining and their intention to encourage other communities to follow their path.
We used to eat a lot of fish, but now we are afraid,’ says Merciel Chita, the second corregidor (chief) of Charque, one of the 23 communities living in the Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve, which covers 400,000 hectares between Beni and La Paz and is divided by the Beni River, their main source of water for subsistence.
In the past, the Beni River was crystal clear and everyone bathed in it. Now it stays that way, you can see it (murky), it never clears up. It’s because in Mapiri (a nearby community) they use the dredgers and dump pollution from industrial mining,’ Chita explains.
From the port of Rurrenabaque, where you take the boat to Charque, the river maintains the same brownish colour that contrasts with the green of the surrounding trees. At dusk, the sun that falls over the horizon is blurred by the murky waves that increase as the day draws to a close.
According to community members who spoke to Mongabay Latam, this riverbed began to change a decade ago as a result of uncontrolled gold mining in Mapiri, a municipality in La Paz where the Kaká River flows into the Beni River and reaches communities that do not benefit economically from gold mining but suffer the environmental consequences.
Although mining companies with government permits operate in Mapiri, questions and irregularities in compliance with the law are common. In 2021, the mayor of the municipality declared that gold mining had turned Mapiri into a ‘lawless region where the Mining Administrative Jurisdictional Authority (AJAM) has lost its authority’.
Chita claims that the Indians cannot drink the water directly. Once they get it from the river, they have to wait at least an hour for the sand to settle at the bottom. There is about two centimetres of earth at the bottom of the bucket. In February, the water was as dirty as if a pig had bathed in it,’ says the leader.
As a result of the contamination of the fish, the indigenous people began to buy chicken and prepare stews with rice, yucca and plantains. As the village is very small, everyone eats from a common pot made by the women of the community.
Money is scarce, but life has no price.
Charque is a small community of the Mosetén indigenous group, home to 36 people who farm for their own needs and only sell some of their produce in Rurrenabaque, the nearest city, just over two hours away by boat.
Originally this community lived in Palos Blancos, La Paz, but about five years ago they crossed the river to Rurrenabaque, Beni. In 2020, due to climate change, they were forced to move again, deeper into the jungle, because their previous land, close to the river, was constantly flooded, destroying their small houses of wood and straw.
We felt sorry for the children because it took a month for the water to dry and everything was muddy. They got fungus on their feet, they couldn’t even walk,’ says Chita.
The community’s unusual name has its own history. Hunting was one of the main activities of these villagers, both for consumption and to sell the leather. Chita says that one day a group of indigenous hunters from the community were trapped in the jungle at night, put the charque (dried meat) of their animals in a boat and, looking for the riverbed, capsized, losing everything they had hunted. So they decided to call themselves Charque.
Although the director of the Tierra Comunitaria de Origen Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve, Álvaro Segovia, assures that there is no mining activity in the protected area where the Charque community lives, gold mining has increased in the surrounding area and there have been several attempts to enter the reserve.
There have been several requests from some companies, but they have all been rejected because our founding decree states that the granting of mining, forestry or oil areas is prohibited,’ Segovia told Mongabay Latam.
In 2017, a mining company operating legally in Mapiri came to Charque with the intention of mining gold in their territory. In return, it promised to build a headquarters for their meetings, drinking water, a shed, electricity, a health centre, a school and to give them US$200,000 in cash.
At the time, Chita was part of the Tsimane Mosetén Regional Council (CRTM) – which brings together the 23 communities of the Pilón Lajas reserve – and was present at the meeting between the indigenous people and the company. They thought they were going to buy us out. The people got tough, they didn’t accept. We didn’t think twice. The community made the decision,’ he recalls.
The company insisted a few more times and, according to Chita, used various methods to persuade the villagers, such as organising meetings without the park rangers or with small groups of indigenous people in order to divide them. They were even shown plans for possible construction. We told them: money is running out, but life is priceless,’ says Chita.
Gonzalo Huasna, president of the Charque Education Council, says they were always aware of the dangers that mining could bring to their territory; they had seen it in neighbouring communities like Mapiri and felt they were close to experiencing it first hand. They stood firm and reiterated their opposition to mining, which is illegal in protected areas such as Pilón Lajas.
We are contaminated.
Refusing mining in their territory was not enough to avoid the effects of contamination. Ten years ago, when mining began in Mapiri, members of the Charque community began to see the colour of their river change, the presence of fish diminish and they began to experience health problems.
The first symptoms were dizziness, headaches, stomach upset and diarrhoea. The alarm was shared with neighbouring communities who were also suffering from the contamination and were experiencing the same health problems.
This prompted the Central de Pueblos Indígenas de La Paz (Cpilap) – which brings together all the Amazonian communities in Bolivia – to carry out a medical study in 2022 to find out if there was contamination and to what extent it was affecting them. The study involved 302 people from 36 communities belonging to the Tacana, Uchupiamona, Tsimane, Lecos, Esse Ejja and Mosetén peoples, of which Charque is a member.
Samples were taken from fish and people’s hair. We are anxiously waiting for the results to find out what is going on… We are contaminated,’ says Magaly Tipuni, president of the Tsimane Mosetén Regional Council (CRTM), which brings together the communities living in the Pilón Lajas reserve.
Tipuni argues that as communities that depend on fish and river water for their food, they are more vulnerable to contamination. The river never clears. The fish is sometimes spoiled,’ he says.
The study found that 74.5% of the people analysed had mercury levels above 2.00 parts per million (ppm), the maximum level set by the World Health Organisation (WHO), although the agency clarifies that a person can suffer neurological damage from a mercury concentration of 0.58 ppm.
In 18 of the communities sampled, all the people studied had high levels of mercury. One of these communities is Charque, which also has the sixth highest percentage of the metal. There, six women were tested and all were found to be contaminated with mercury, with levels ranging from over 2.00 ppm to as high as 4.00 ppm.
Our life is fish. We are used to eating fish every day, we drink water from the river. This is how we are being contaminated,’ explains Magaly Tipuni.
One of the women involved in the study, who asked that her name not be used for fear of stigmatisation, is in charge of the food served to visitors. She is over 60 years old, walks barefoot on the dirt floor and has long, flowing hair. She smiles, although in her native language she says she is worried about the younger women.
Not much has changed since they were given the results. Chita says the only advice they have received is not to eat ‘sweaty fish’, but to fry it, because the metal is more concentrated in the fat, so some of the mercury ends up in the oil in the frying pan.
Now it seems that if you eat fish, you die of pollution. It’s worrying,’ says Chita. The indigenous leader also says that the fish in the river have decreased due to pollution and fishing outside the closed season.
The Cpilap filed a popular action to stop mining in the area in August 2023, which was granted in September that year. However, when Mongabay Latam arrived in the area during the XI Pan-Amazonian Social Forum (FOSPA) in June 2024, the reality for the communities living along the banks of the Beni River was the same.
The people of Charque say they continue to drink the water, which they say is contaminated, because they have no other choice. They try to cook the fish differently, but it is not always possible because they have to buy oil, which costs money.
During the XI FOSPA, the non-observance of the popular action and the progress of mining pollution in the area were denounced. One of the resolutions of the meeting was to demand that the Bolivian government take measures to reduce the damage caused by gold mining.
We are following up and we will continue to do so to ensure that this stops. Remembering the mining issue gives us headaches, it gives us sadness. We don’t want mining in our territory because it has cost us a lot. We have united our territory, all the communities are saying with one voice ‘we don’t want mining’,” says Magaly Tipuni.
Growing vulnerability
Alfredo Zaconeta, a researcher at the Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Laboral y Agrario (CEDLA), says that in addition to Mapiri’s mercury, contamination from fuels, lubricants, oils and other elements in the community is causing a significant change in the lives of community members downstream.
They are now replacing fish with chicken because they are aware that eating a lot of fish is bad for their health,” he says.
This change also brings about a change in their economy, as they have to go to the city market to buy chicken, an expense they are not used to, as they traditionally eat what is produced and grown in their area.
The presence of mining affects not only the environment and health, but also the economy. These are changes that are not part of the socio-environmental process in the area, and they have a negative impact,’ Zaconeta told Mongabay Latam.
Zaconeta says that resistance processes like the one in Charque sometimes have a shelf life, as there are many cases where communities end up succumbing to the cooperative mining sector. When there is hardship, poverty and inequality, they are more inclined [to give in to extractive pressures], and without state support to strengthen their agricultural vocation, mining has its way,’ he warns.
In addition, the community of Charque does not engage in artisanal mining, but there are neighbouring communities that collect gold in order to obtain money to meet some of their basic needs.
The director of the Pilón Lajas reserve, Álvaro Segovia, assures us that they carry out checks to ensure that community members are not mining in prohibited areas. If they exceed the permitted number of days (five per month), they are expelled, and if they return to mine, they are subject to an administrative procedure that imposes a fine, although he was unable to specify the criteria used to determine the value of this sanction.
As reserve authorities, our hands are tied because the pollution comes from upstream and we have no jurisdiction over these illegal activities. We receive the pollution from the headwaters of the rivers and streams,’ laments Segovia.
Working together
Charque’s allies in preventing mining in the Pilón Lajas reserve are the park rangers, who, like her, are indigenous people who want to take care of their territory.
When the reserve was created in 1992, there were 20 rangers. Over time, several retired and their places were not filled, so that today there are only 10 for the 400,000 hectares covered by this protected area.
Mosetén Román Micho is one of the reserve’s oldest rangers. In the 25 years he has been working in Pilón Lajas, he has seen how the area has changed due to the lack of government support. He also explains how pollution from mining in the headwaters of the river basin has affected all the communities through which the river water flows.
We work together. There are meetings and community members tell us where to patrol, both on the road and along the river,’ Micho told Mongabay Latam during a visit to Charque.
Park ranger Carlos Aparicio says the mining companies are constantly approaching the National Service of Protected Areas (Sernap) for permission to enter the reserve, while trying to negotiate with community members in parallel.
We are united with the communities. We will not abandon them. There are already attempts to grid [divide the area for mining]. Maybe they will want to move in later,’ says Aparicio, who also mentions that so far there are no mining companies inside the reserve, but there is artisanal mining.
Artisanal mining is covered by Law 535 on Mining and Metallurgy, which guarantees respect for the uses and customs of indigenous peoples who extract metals in small quantities for their subsistence. The practice is regulated and cannot be used for large-scale commercial purposes or industrial mining tools, but the lack of control means that it is often used for illegal mining.
Despite the challenges, the people of Pilón Lajas are not giving up. As it is a large area with few staff, the monitoring is carried out as a team. If one of the villagers sees strangers, he warns the others and calls the park rangers to monitor the entry of strangers.
The language helps the rangers to get closer to the villagers as they speak the same language and understand their needs as many of them are shared.
The rangers insist that Charque sets an example for other communities by protecting their territory against all odds. They also stress that this drives them to improve control by working as a team. We don’t give up, we continue to monitor our territory. We want to guarantee the existence of the communities that have traditionally lived in the area,’ says Micho.
