Lessons and Questions from Studies of Mercury in the Amazon Region

Knowledge about the behaviour of mercury in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems largely result from studies carried out in Europe, North America and Japan e.g. in temperate areas. The SCOPE mercury project aims at complementing this information with results from studies in other areas including the tropics. One of the reasons for this interest is the rapidly growing use of mercury in connection with small scale gold mining in developing countries all over the globe. This paper presents some of the preliminary findings from studies in the Amazone region.