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Amazon prosecutors get sharper impact tool to charge illegal gold dealers

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In the nonstop battle to curtail illegal gold mining across the Amazon and the massive damage it does to rainforests, biodiversity and human health, a Brazilian research team has sharpened an economic valuation tool to help law enforcement more effectively prosecute companies buying illegal gold for sale in foreign markets. The new research by the Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF) Brazil and published in January in the peer-reviewed journal Policy Resources is seen as bolstering the so-called Mining Impacts Calculator. The calculator was launched in Brazil in 2021 and adopted in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador in 2023. It was originally developed in partnership with Brazil’s Public Prosecutor’s Office not so much to pursue small-scale, illegal miners in the rainforest but rather purchasers of large quantities of illegal gold, with the aim of reducing demand for gold at its source. “This current research is the first to present a unified methodology, as opposed to parts of the methodology that we published in previous studies,” Pedro Gasparinetti, a CSF environmental economist and lead author of the new study, told Mongabay. “The outcome is the improved accuracy of the estimations, especially of mercury contaminations” as it relates to human health, he said. The study notes that the methodological improvements are “the first to combine” human health impacts with the valuation of environmental impacts such as deforestation and soil degradation. Gustavo Geiser, a criminal investigator with the Federal Police of Brazil, has pursued environmental crimes in the Amazon since 2006. He told Mongabay the calculator…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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