纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英黄金的另一面致命炼金术

Jeovane de Jesus Aguiar was knee-deep in mud in the 100-yard gash he had cut into the Amazon rainforest, filtering brown water out of a pan, when he found the small, shiny flake he was looking for: a mixture of gold and mercury.

乔瓦尼·德赫苏斯·阿吉亚尔在亚马孙雨林里挖了一个约90米深的坑，他站在及膝的泥浆里，用一个浅盘将褐色的水滤出，找到了他要找的东西——一种闪亮的小薄片，那是金和汞的混合物。

Mr. Aguiar had drizzled liquid mercury into the ground in his makeshift gold mine on the eastern edge of the small South American nation of Suriname, just as he had every few days.

在这个南美小国苏里南靠近东部边境的地方，阿吉亚尔在他简陋的金矿里把液态汞滴到土里。每隔几天，他就会这么做一次。

The toxic element mixes with gold dust and forms an amalgam he can pluck out of the sludge. Then he sets the mixture aflame, burning off the mercury into the air, where winds spread it across the forest and across borders, poisoning the plants, animals and people it finds.

这种毒物与金粉混合，形成汞合金，这样他就可以从泥土中将它们取出。然后，他将混合物点燃，让汞挥发到空气中，风将汞吹到亚马孙雨林和边境，毒害所及的植物、动物和人。

Left behind is the gold. That part usually ends up in Europe, the United States and the Persian Gulf, most often as expensive jewelry.

剩下的就是黄金。它们通常会被运到欧洲、美国和波斯湾，最常见的用途是作为昂贵的珠宝。

Twenty minutes along the river, the Wayana Indigenous community is getting sick. The Wayana eat fish from the river every day and, in recent years, many have been suffering from joint pain, muscle weakness and swelling. They also say birth defects are rising.

在沿河20分钟路程的地方，就是原住民瓦亚纳人生活的地方，当地有许多人患病。近年来，许多人出现了关节疼痛、肌肉无力和浮肿的症状。他们还说，先天缺陷的情况也在增多。

Tests show that the Wayana have double to triple the medically acceptable levels of mercury in their blood. “We’re not allowed to eat certain fish anymore,” said Linia Opoya in June, showing her hands, which ache after meals. “But there’s nothing else. That’s what we’ve always eaten.”

检测表明，瓦亚纳人血液中的汞含量是医学上可接受水平的两到三倍。“我们被禁止吃某些鱼了，”今年6月的时候，利尼亚·奥波亚说道。她给我们看她的双手，说吃完饭就会痛。“但只有这些吃的。这就是我们一直以来的食物。” 

Driven by global scientific consensus that mercury causes brain damage, severe illnesses and birth defects, most of the world’s countries signed a groundbreaking international treaty in 2013 committing themselves to eradicating its use globally.

全球科学界一致认为，汞会导致脑损伤、严重疾病和先天性缺陷，在这一共识的推动下，世界上大多数国家于2013年签署了一项开创性的国际条约，承诺在全球范围内禁汞。

Yet 10 years later, mercury remains a scourge.

然而，10年过去了，汞仍然是一个祸害。

It has seriously harmed thousands of children in Indonesia. It has contaminated rivers throughout the Amazon, creating a humanitarian crisis for Brazil’s largest isolated tribe. And worldwide, doctors still warn against eating too much of certain fish because the toxic metal floats into the ocean and is absorbed into the food chain.

它严重伤害了印度尼西亚数以千计的儿童。它已经污染了整个亚马孙地区的河流，给巴西最大的与世隔绝的部落造成了人道主义危机。在世界范围内，医生们仍然在警告，某些鱼类不可过多食用，因为汞这种有毒金属会漂进大海，进入食物链。

Suriname, a forested nation of 620,000 people on the northern edge of South America, is a case study in how mercury has become so intractable in large part because of society’s insatiable appetite for gold.

苏里南是南美洲北部边缘一个拥有62万人口的森林国家，它是汞问题之所以变得如此棘手的研究实例，在很大程度上，这是人类社会对黄金的贪得无厌所致。

For decades, mercury has poisoned much of Suriname’s population. Nearly one in five births results in complications such as death, low birth weight or disabilities, according to one study, twice the rate of the United States. Yet mercury has also fueled the nation’s economy; gold accounts for 85 percent of Suriname’s exports, most of it mined with mercury.

几十年来，汞毒害了苏里南的大部分人口。一项研究显示，近五分之一的新生儿会出现并发症，如死亡、出生时体重不足或残疾，这一比例是美国的两倍。然而，汞也促进了该国的经济发展；黄金占苏里南出口的85%，其中大部分是用汞开采的。

“I could work without mercury,” said Mr. Aguiar, 51, overlooking his open pit. “But it wouldn’t be profitable.”

“没有汞，我也能工作。”51岁的阿吉亚尔俯瞰着他的露天矿说。“但这样的话，就没有什么利润。”

Suriname has banned mercury, yet the substance is easily smuggled in and widely used.

苏里南已禁止使用汞，但这种物质很容易走私并被广泛使用。

The Surinamese government did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

该国政府没有回应记者的多次置评请求。

While Western countries, including the United States, have largely phased out mercury, more than 10 million people in 70 countries — mostly poorer nations across Asia, Africa and Latin America — still use the toxic element to extract gold from the ground, according to the United Nations.

虽然包括美国在内的西方国家已经基本上逐步淘汰了汞，但据联合国的数据，还有70个国家（主要是亚洲、非洲和拉丁美洲的较贫穷国家）的1000多万人仍在使用这种有毒元素从地下提取黄金。

These small-scale miners produce a fifth of the world’s gold — and nearly two-fifths of the world’s mercury pollution, according to the United Nations and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Mining is the leading source of mercury emissions, ahead of coal-fired power plants.

根据联合国和美国环保局的数据，这些小型开采者生产了全球五分之一的黄金，同时也导致了全球近五分之二的汞污染。采矿业是汞排放的主要来源，排在燃煤发电厂之前。

“This is the brutal face of poverty,” said Achim Steiner, chief of the U.N. Development Program. For many miners, “the fact that mercury might harm me in 10 years’ time is too far from the reality of survival,” he added.

联合国开发计划署署长阿希姆·施泰纳说：“这就是贫困的残酷面目。”他还表示，对许多矿工来说，“面对眼下的生计，实在难以顾及10年后才会显现危害的汞。”

Large-scale gold miners use centrifuge machines or arsenic, which does not seep into the environment. Small miners choose mercury because it is cheap, easy to use and still available.

大型金矿开采企业会使用离心机或砷，后者不会渗入环境。小型矿场之所以选择汞，是因为它便宜、易于使用，而且仍然可以买到。

“Mercury, for better or worse, is a very simple technology, used for the better part of 2,000 years,” said Luis Fernandez, a Wake Forest University professor who has studied small-scale gold mining. “You can learn how to be a miner in 15 minutes, and you get pretty good results.”

“好坏不说，汞是一种非常简单的技术，已经使用了2000年之久。”维克森林大学教授路易斯·费尔南德斯说。“15分钟就可以学会成为一名矿工，并取得相当不错的收益。”

While many countries have banned mercury in mining, enforcement is lax, Mr. Fernandez said. Gold mining “is an economic pressure valve for poorer countries,” he said. And that has only been compounded by the 12 percent rise in gold prices over the past year, to nearly $2,000 an ounce.

费尔南德斯说，虽然许多国家已经禁止将汞用于采矿，但执法不严。黄金开采“是较贫穷国家的经济压力阀”，他说。而过去一年，金价上涨了12%，达到每盎司近2000美元，更加剧了这种情况。

In 2013, the international community signed a broad treaty to take mercury off the market. It was called the Minamata Convention, named for a Japanese city where decades of industrial mercury pollution caused neurological diseases in more than 2,200 residents and even poisoned the city’s cats, causing them to jump into the sea.

2013年，国际社会签署了一项大型条约，禁止汞进入市场。它被称为《水俣公约》。水俣是一座日本城市的名字，那里曾因数十年的工业汞污染导致2200多名居民患上神经系统疾病，甚至导致猫中毒并纷纷跳海。

Under the convention — which 145 nations, including Suriname, have now ratified — countries pledged to ban new mercury mines, close existing ones and, with some exceptions, halt the import and export of mercury.

根据该公约（包括苏里南在内的145个国家现已批准该公约）各国承诺禁止新建汞矿，关闭现有汞矿，除特殊情况外，停止汞的进出口。

The United States and European Union have since banned virtually all mercury exports, leaving the United Arab Emirates, Tajikistan, Russia, Mexico and Nigeria as some of the largest exporters. Researchers believe that China, which adopted the treaty, remains the world’s largest user of mercury.

此后，美国和欧盟几乎禁止了所有汞出口，这令阿拉伯联合酋长国、塔吉克斯坦、俄罗斯、墨西哥和尼日利亚成为最大的汞出口国。研究人员认为，已签署该条约的中国仍是世界上最大的汞使用国。

The Minamata Convention, however, did not target small-scale gold mining. “Evidence has shown time and again that if you ban something that people need and there is no alternative, you simply drive them into illegality,” Mr. Steiner said.

然而，《水俣公约》并未针对小规模金矿开采。“证据一次又一次地表明，如果你禁止人们需要的东西，而又没有其他选择，你只会把他们逼向非法行为，”施泰纳说。

Where Mr. Aguiar lives along the Maroni River, which forms the boundary between Suriname and French Guiana, everyone is either a miner or works for one. About 15 percent of Suriname’s work force, or 18,000 people, is connected to the gold mining industry, one of the highest percentages in the world, according to studies by the Free University of Amsterdam.

阿吉亚尔居住的马罗尼河沿岸是苏里南和法属圭亚那的分界线，这里的人要么是开矿场，要么在矿场打工。阿姆斯特丹自由大学的研究显示，苏里南约有15%的劳动力，即1.8万人，与金矿业有关，是世界上这一占比最高的国家之一。

At the mines, workers shoot pressurized water to wash away generations of sediment, cutting into the landscape and exposing the layer they hope contains gold. Then they throw mercury into the water so it will bind naturally with any gold below.

在矿场，工人们用高压水冲洗掉几个世代的沉积物，掘入地中，露出他们寄望含有黄金的地层。然后他们把汞扔进水里，使其与下面的金自然结合。

The mercury is not hard to come by — and experts believe that much of it arrives from China.

汞并不难获得，专家认为其中大部分来自中国。

A few hours before Mr. Aguiar was tossing mercury into his mine, where he employs seven people, he docked his canoe at one of the dozens of Chinese merchants on the banks of the Maroni. The shops sell the same goods: Coca-Cola, instant noodles, condoms and mercury. Mr. Aguiar bought a kilogram in an unmarked prescription drug bottle for $250. If he is lucky, it will be enough to mine a half-kilogram of gold, which he can sell for roughly $25,000.

阿吉亚尔在矿上雇佣了七名员工。在他把汞扔进矿坑的几个小时前，他把自己的独木舟停靠在马罗尼河岸边数十个中国商人之一的门前。这些商店出售同样的商品：可口可乐、方便面、避孕套和汞。阿吉亚尔花250美元买了一公斤汞，装在没有标记的处方药瓶子里。如果幸运的话，这足够他开采半公斤的黄金，可以卖出大约2.5万美元。

Elsewhere in Suriname, vendors posted listings on Facebook and cabdrivers offered mercury connections. People across the country said mercury sellers were overwhelmingly Chinese, and interactions with several Chinese sellers revealed that they had little concern that they were doing anything illegal; mercury was a product like any other.

在苏里南的其他地方，小贩们在Facebook上发布信息，出租车司机也有买汞的门路。全国各地的人都表示，汞的卖家绝大多数是中国人，与几位中国卖家的交流显示，他们并不担心自己在做什么违法的事情；汞和其他产品没什么不同。

The Organization of American States said this year that mercury in Suriname was probably “imported from China on container ships bringing in other goods, such as mining equipment.”

美洲国家组织今年表示，苏里南的汞很可能是“用集装箱船从中国进口的，船上还运来了采矿设备等其他货物”。

In South America, researchers believe, only Bolivia imports mercury legally.

研究人员认为，在南美洲，只有玻利维亚的汞是通过合法途径进口的。

“So the question is: Where does it come from?” President Chandrikapersad Santokhi of Suriname told reporters in May. “We know it’s smuggled.”

“所以问题是：它来自哪里？”苏里南总统桑托基5月对记者说。“我们知道这是走私的。”

Dr. Wilco Zijlmans, a pediatrician in Suriname who has studied the health effects of mercury, said its impact was clear. In a 2020 study of 1,200 Surinamese women that he helped conduct, 97 percent had unsafe levels of mercury in their bodies.

研究汞对健康影响的苏里南儿科医生威尔科·齐尔曼斯表示，人体所受影响是显而易见的。2020年，在他协助进行的一项针对1200名苏里南妇女的研究中，97%的人体内的汞含量达到不安全水平。

In addition to the elevated rate of birth complications, Dr. Zijlmans also found that children in Suriname were far more likely today than a generation ago to have delayed brain development, decreased motor skills and worse language and social abilities.

除了患有先天并发症的几率上升，齐尔曼斯还发现，与上一代人相比，如今苏里南儿童更可能出现大脑发育迟缓、运动技能下降、以及语言和社交能力较差的情况。

The effects are also showing up across the border. The Wayana Indigenous community has about 1,000 members spread across Suriname and French Guiana, which is French territory. Those in French Guiana have French citizenship, and French doctors have tracked the spread of mercury in some of their villages, which are surrounded by more than two dozen gold mines.

这些影响也波及到了国境之外。瓦亚纳土著族群的大约1000人口分布于苏里南和法属圭亚那。生活在法属圭亚那的瓦亚纳人拥有法国公民身份，法国医护人员对其部分村落的汞污染扩散进行了追踪，这些村落周边至少存在20几处金矿。

“Eventually, this will become like Minamata, too,” said Ms. Opoya, the Wayana member, who lives in one of the villages on French territory.

“这里最后也会变得和水俣市一样，”奥波娅说道，她是居于法属领土一处村落里的瓦亚纳人。

Upriver, when Mr. Aguiar wants to cash in, he takes his haul to the Chinese merchants who sell him the mercury. Those merchants then head to the hundreds of small gold-buying shops dotted across Paramaribo, Suriname’s capital.

而在上游地区，当阿吉亚尔想赚上一笔，他就会带着货去找卖给他汞的中国商人。而后这些商人又会前往遍布于苏里南首都帕拉马里博的黄金收购小店。

At one shop, the owner, Arnaldo Ribeiro, said he buys just about all the gold that comes through his doors but has little idea where it comes from or whether it has been mined with mercury.

其中一家店的店主阿纳尔多·里贝罗说，凡是上门的黄金生意他基本都做，但他不知道这些黄金是哪里来的，也不知道是不是利用汞开采的。

He then resells it to Kaloti Minthouse, a joint venture between the Surinamese government and a gold importer based in the United Arab Emirates.

他会把货转手卖给卡洛蒂炼金厂，这是苏里南政府与阿联酋一家黄金进口商成立的合资企业。

“We don’t have to prove provenance,” Mr. Ribeiro said of the gold he sells.

“我们不需要证明货物来源，”里贝罗在谈到自己出售的黄金时说道。

Kaloti Minthouse then legally exports the gold around the world.

然后，卡洛蒂炼金厂再将黄金合法出口到世界各地。

That means gold like Mr. Aguiar’s, cleaned of its mercury residue, is shipped off to become bank bullion, a necklace or perhaps a wedding ring, all its documents in order.

也就是说，阿吉亚尔手里的金子在被清除掉汞残留后，会被运走，变成银行金条、项链、或许还有结婚戒指，所有凭证一应俱全。