Using Satellite Data to Estimate Risk of Mercury Exposure in the Amazonian Wayana Language Territory between Suriname, French Guiana, and Brazil

Abstract

BackgroundThere is a need for methods that measure the public and environmental health risks of mercury from small-scale gold mines (SSGMs) at a regional scale in tropical forests. Mercury is poisonous, with mercury toxicity in humans most commonly affecting the neurologic, gastrointestinal and renal organ systems at the individual, community and population scale. Economic development policies and projects responsible for SSGM in regions held by indigenous people are developed at the regional scale.MethodsThe synoptic regional-scale perspective of overhead remote imaging technology was used to supplement previous ground-level community risk and health assessment studies. The objective was to evaluate the usefulness of remote sensing as a method for measuring mercury impacts over large areas and test whether regional-level vegetation index values are lower in a test area where mercury contamination from SSGMs are known to impact human health compared to index values in a pristine reference area.ResultsLow vegetation index values were obtained in the test area compared to the high index values at the pristine reference location where vegetation stress is low. Public policy solutions to system-level causes of indigenous health issues caused by natural resource extraction projects are limited in this region where policymakers and economists perform cost-benefit analyses, ostensibly to develop rational economic development policies, that are built on the legal principle terra nullius codified in Western civil law as the Doctrine of Discovery. This principle designates the land and resources held by indigenous people as vacant and empty thus rendering the value of the lives of indigenous people equal to zero. Conclusions Vegetation index values were lower in the test area where there was mercury contamination from SSGMs when compared to a pristine reference area. These results suggest that remote sensing methods can be useful for measuring mercury contamination at scales that support the supranational policy development processes and address health issues caused by factors that lie outside the health sector and are economically formed. At this scale, the ratio comparing the cost of prevention to the benefits is revealed to be an irrational number when the benefit value of the lives saved is set at zero.