UNIDO, WHO promise to help miners
UNIDO, WHO promise to help miners
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
and the World Health organization (WHO) pledged to provide
financial and technical assistance to the country's local gold
miners who had been using mercury in their hunt for gold.
The joint UNIDO-WHO aid package would include the transfer of
technology aimed at reducing the use of hazardous materials in
small-scale gold mining.
The two UN agencies also set up a project aimed at curbing the
use of mercury and to monitor mercury pollution and health
hazards in selected gold mining sites.
"UNIDO and WHO consider mercury pollution in small-scale gold
mining as an important issue which needs to be addressed
urgently," George Petersen, the WHO representative to Indonesia
said during a seminar on Thursday.
He did not say the total value of the planned assistance.
Many villagers in remote areas in the country search for gold
in traditional ways by using mercury to separate gold from other
fragments.
Mercury is not only hazardous to human health but is also a
serious threat to the environment.
The diseases caused by the use of mercury among can include
problems with the central nervous system, vision and hearing
disorders and brain damage to unborn children.
Most of the traditional gold miners are also actually illegal
miners. Many areas in the country have been officially banned as
sites for mining, let alone the use of mercury.
According to one estimate, there are around 500,000 people
involved in traditional gold mining.
"Most of them are indulging themselves illegally, while the
rest are operating with a very limited knowledge on the
environmental degradation, pollution and health hazards,"
Petersen said.
Meanwhile, Dian Triansyah Djani, director for multilateral
trade and industry at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that
the joint UNIDO and WHO project was also aimed at raising public
awareness about the danger of mercury.
"People working in the small gold mining sites are unaware of
the hazardous mercury pollution," Dian said.