Reuters World News - Weekend episode: Gold mining's impact on Amazon animals and actors talk Hollywood at the bar

Episode Date: August 5, 2023

Travel with reporter Jake Spring to Los Amigos Biological station in the Amazon rainforest of Peru's Madre de Dios region. There, researchers have found mercury contamination from gold mining is threatening scores of species. Some 46,000 miners search for gold in the country's epicenter of small-scale mining. And we visit a Hollywood watering hole called Residuals Tavern to chat with working class actors struggling with the change to their industry. Plus Spain's cava makers look for creative fixes as drought threatens grape harvest. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt-out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we travel to the Amazon rainforest where gold mining is poisoning scores of threatened species. While the vineyards across Catalonia's renowned Penedes region feel the impact of climate change, tourists get a hand from AI as they navigate Japan's baffling transport hub. And we visit the Hollywood Bar where actors are grappling with changes to their industry and their paychecks. This is a special weekend episode of Reuters World News. I'm Kim Vinal in London. And I'm Jake Spring in Peru. Four scientists are crowded into a small camping tent in the Peruvian jungle.

On the table in front of them lies a tiny Amazonian rodent wearing a miniature anesthesia mask. The researchers set about taking meticulous measurements of the animal before tweezing a few hairs from this small, pigmy rice rat to see if it is yet another victim of mercury contamination. I followed the researchers over the course of three days at the Los Amigos Biological Station as they set out mists nets and metal traps in the jungle to capture mammals and birds for testing. Previous research has focused on mercury and people, fish, and some birds, but this is a world-first look at how mercury from unregulated gold mining is affecting forest-dwelling,

mammals in the Amazon, where more than 10,000 species of plants and animals are already at high risk of extinction due to destruction of the rainforest. The lab until recently focused on infectious diseases and parasites, but then two years ago, mining arrived on the Los Amigos' doorstep. Across the river, visible to the naked eye from the camp, you can see that it's been deforested and dug up into mucky pits. Just in the little over a decade that I've been working here, you can just see how this place is being transformed by human industries. I spoke to Gideon Erkenzwick, who's been coming to the site since 2009 for a variety of different research about why they started to do mercury testing now.

And he told me that they've just seen mining drastically reshaped the region. And there's a lot of gold, small flex of gold in the sediment, and so people can extract it using a process. that involves mercury. It's not the only way, but it's the most common way, most affordable way. And so mercury in this process runs off into the environment or gets burned and then becomes an aerosol that goes all over the place. They really didn't know what they would find. They didn't know if they would find mercury levels in animals. Because a lot of these forests are intact. They're not directly being deforested by mining. They're just nearby. so they might find mercury, they might not. And they've been surprised to find that virtually all the samples they take come back

with some level of mercury contamination. And many of the levels are astounding, they say. Well, they say they're very surprised to see high levels of mercury in monkeys because monkeys don't normally eat fish or other types of foods that would normally be considered to be high in mercury. So it's a bit of a mystery as to what is happening that this mercury is getting into these monkeys. how is it contaminating them?

But what could be happening here? Could easily be happening in other populations? I also spoke to Caroline Moore, who's a veterinarian with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, and she's the one that's leading the mercury research for them. And she says, you know, it's hard to know exactly the effect of mercury on an animal because these animals aren't coming back year after year for doctors' checkups. Are the birds exposed?

If so, how? And if the birds are exposed, who else is exposed? Are the humans exposed? Are these megafauna also exposed? and what does it all mean? And so we're slowly building up that picture. And what we build up here can then be applied other places in the world where mining and mercury exposures are a concern.

Peru is one of the largest producers worldwide in gold, and it's the largest producer in Latin America. And a huge chunk of that production is being carried out by basically subsistence miners. You know, small-scale miners working on their own. We're not talking about big companies doing this, which means they use kind of these. practices that leak mercury into the environment and it's not tightly controlled. And this, I mean, it's a really big job provider, for example, in the area of Madrid de Dios.

There's 46,000 minors thought to be there. Only 6,000 are formally legally registered. The rest, either being informal or outright illegal. And there have been crackdowns over time. A few years ago, the Peruvian government instituted in a state of emergency and sent 1,500 soldiers and police to the area. try to kind of push the miners into areas that they've said are okay for mining, or at least they're not protected reserves.

And they've seen some success with that, but the Los Amigo station is right on the edge of the corridor, so the effects are still being seen there. There's still a lot of wildlife there. So it's better, but it's not fully taken care of the problem. We asked Peru's Environment Ministry about what, if any, measures they're taking to contain mercury contamination, but they didn't respond to us before,

publication of this episode. For actors trying to make it in Hollywood, a tiny residual check used to be kind of a running joke. In fact, one neighborhood watering hole, which is actually called Residual's Tavern, would offer a free beer to any performer who brought in a check for less than a dollar from reruns of TV shows or movies. It used to be kind of a rarity to get such a tiny residual check. Now it is so common. for these residuals to be coming in on these new platforms that are ridiculously low. That's John O'Brien, an actor and patron of residuals tavern.

Our reporter Lisa Richwine caught up with him and others at the bar to see how they're faring these days as dual strikes have shut down Hollywood. Today, they still do give out a free beer if you have a residual check that's under a dollar. But the actors say it's no longer funny. It was funny back in the 80s and 90s, but it is so common. and now that it's become a real problem for actors trying to make a living. What we're striking for, one of the many reasons we're striking is because of the lack of decent residuals. One of the actors I talked to was Michael Spelman and said for most of his career,

he was able to make a living from being an actor. And he didn't have to do things like weight tables that a lot of actors do when they're starting out. But recently, the residuals have gotten so low that he's had to take on some side gigs himself. He leads tourists to the Hollywood sign, and this week he's actually driving a dog across the country for a company that transports pets for people who are relocating. So he's had to pick up extra work because the residual checks are just not enough to help him pay all bills. Why are they so low now? The checks used to be, you know, big enough that they could cover your electric bill or something. I mean, they were, you know, you go to check for $200 and for a working class actor that made a big difference in just being able to make a living.

Today, after the switch to streaming, residual checks have gotten much smaller. The streaming services pay on a different formula, and now a lot of the checks are 30 cents, one cent, a dollar 50. That, I'm told, has become much more common. We're you, we're the American worker. You know, we're the people working in the Amazon warehouse. The actors I spoke with at the bar are really working class people. They have steady jobs. They're not big names that you would know.

you probably wouldn't recognize them, but they have steady work on TV shows in small roles, you know, that are needed to make these TV shows, and they say they're just struggling to pay their bills. I think if I had to say anything to people, especially to, like, my friends and family in Michigan, that they just see a bunch of actors whining. They think about celebrities whining about more money,

and it's not about that. The Hollywood studios acknowledge that this is an issue, and they say they've offered generous increase. to the actors. They say overall, with increases in residuals and pay and other benefits, they are offering what is worth $1 billion over the life of a three-year contract to all of the actors. At a train station in Tokyo, a 19-year-old student from Italy

walks up to a station agent to ask a question in English. The agent responds in Japanese, but both understand the other perfectly. Between them is a digital screen displaying instant translations of what they're saying. How do you have a sweep of a car to buy there? As Japan enjoys a post-pandemic resurgence and tourism from around the globe, Sebu Railway is using this new automated translation tool to help visitors navigate one of Tokyo's most baffling transportation hubs. The device is voice biz and can translate between 12 languages.

Having it like this, clear on a screen, It's really nice. Thank you very much. That helps us a lot today. Thank you. Fancy a glass of bubbly. You might be left thirsty if you've got a taste for cover. Vineyards across Catalonia's renowned Penedes region are so parched that the roots of 30-year-old vines have died,

leaving shrivelled red and green grapes languishing under the intense sun. It's among the most affected regions by Spain's long drought. Viticulturist, a royal roig, says they're worried that this year's temperatures will become the norm. If so, that means less carver, so fans will have to splash out for a bottle. That's it for this weekend episode. Special thanks to Jake Spring for his help. We'll be back with our daily headline show on Monday. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite.

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