For this photo, I'm taking a more general approach and ditching the questions. The image hardly seems to do anything that the second image does not already do. I'd be curious to see any visual evidence of this rate of mercury dumping which so thoroughly surpassing what occurred at Minamata. Do you have any photographs of people downstream suffering health effects of this region's ecologically devasting mining practice? Conversely, your discussion of the market for gold makes me curious to see the gold in use. If Peru's production is 6th in the world, maybe you ought to figure out who their primary trade partners are. Let's say it's Spain or China. Find images of the most exhorbitant uses of gold in one of those places. This you could juxtapose with some sick and poisoned looking person from downstream (in Peru or further into Brazil, I imagine this is an instance of transnational pollution?). I find these consumer-oriented tactics, when involved with such personal and romantic purchases as jewelry, truly effective. I have not bought anything like a diamond since listening to Kanye rapping about Sierra Leone. I always figured gold mining was hard on workers and environments, but your narrative exceeds my already low expectations. Get folks like me to start feeling literal disgust when we see others wearing gold and the market alone might bring this horrific situation to a close. Thank you for a beautiful, stimulating, and moving photo essay. Cheers.
