摘要
厄瓜多尔南部的小型金矿正导致相当大的环境影响,其中最重要的影响是与金属、非金属和氰化物排放到附近河流中有关。在河流中,这些污染物一般不以水溶性的形式存在,但与悬浮颗粒和河床沉积物有关。然而这些污染物在生物区内含量的升高显示它们容易被生物获得。这些结果提出当评介水质的影响和制定合适的环境水质标准时必须考虑悬浮和沉积相。污染物的排放完全是由于对开采和加工过程中产生的废物的管理不够而导致的,这表明了控制采矿行为的政策和公众监督的失败,以及在小型矿区获得良好环境的普遍困难。这些发现建议厄瓜多尔的政策需要改善,以使小型手工业矿区变成大型矿区。
Small-scale gold mining in southern Ecuador is causing considerable environmental impacts, the most Important of which are related to the discharge of metals, metalloids and cyanide into adjacent rivers. In the rivers, these con-taminants are generally not present in water-soluble forms, but are instead associated with suspended particles and river bed sediment. However, elevated levels in biota show these contaminants to be readily bioavailable. These results suggest a need to consider the suspended and sediment phases when evaluating water-quality impacts, and in setting appropriate environmental water quality standards. Contaminant discharges are almost entirely caused by inadequate management of the waste products derived from mining and processing activities, indicating a failure of policy and public supervision to control the mining activities, as well as a general difficulty in achieving good environmental performance among small-scale miners. These findings suggest that Ecuadorian policy needs to develop to enable small scale and artisanal miners to become larger scale.
