Paraguay's Deadly Gold Rush
Record exports of the precious metal come at a cost.
PASO YOBAI— In January, vice-minister for Mines and Energy Mauricio Bejarano announced that Paraguay had exported a “historic” amount of gold: and earned a serious amount of cash.
In 2024 alone, he said, the treasury received $250,000 in taxes from 600 kilos of the precious metal, mainly exported to the United States. And nearly all of this gold comes from one small district: Paso Yobai, in the department of Guairá, some 130 miles from Asunción.
Soaring global prices for the precious metal have, in the past few years, turned this once-sleepy area – known for the quality of its yerba mate – into an increasingly lawless boomtown.
There is also rising anger, as miners rapidly encroach on urban and rural areas alike, exposing crops, livestock and people to toxic chemicals – as the authorities, both local and national, look the other way.
From mercury to cyanide
Since the Minamata Convention – which bans the use of mercury in mining operations – entered into force in Paraguay in 2018, another method has gained ground.
The leaching method, or cyanidation, involves mixing large quantities of cyanide, lime and cement in giant ponds to dissolve gold from low-grade ores.
In March 2024, Paraguay’s president Santiago Peña signed decree N° 1447, officially regulating mineral processing plants that use this technique.
For miners, the cyanide method is an upgrade: it lets them recover as much as 97 percent of the gold, compared to just 60 percent with mercury.
But according to the economist Sara Zevaco – author of one of the first studies to warn about the negative effects of cyanide in Paraguayan mining operations – there are multiple downsides.
Not only does producing just a kilo of gold this way require a thousand tonnes of rock, 160 kilos of cyanide, and nearly 1.5 million litres of water.
It also produces 2,000 tonnes of solid waste and nearly a tonne of carbon dioxide – equivalent to driving 52,000 kilometres in a car.
And a study published in April by researchers at the Universidad Nacional de Asunción and the Universidad Católica found high levels of mercury and cyanide contamination close by the leaching ponds.
In the soil, the streams, the leaves of yerba mate plants – and in people.
A crackdown on dissent
As global demand and prices for gold soar, this emerging industry has divided locals and pitted neighbour against neighbour. On January 10, miners and yerba mate growers almost came to blows.
According to a report by Amnesty International, trucks loaded with mining waste and escorted by National Police with a warrant broke into the property of a yerba farmer. Both sides, the miners and the farmers, threw stones with slings.
Rafael Baruja, a lawyer for the campesinos, later said the situation was “millimetres from a massacre.” A prosecutor from Villarrica, the district capital, charged six people with coercion.
Vidal Brítez, 56, a small-scale grower of the leaf and president of a local association of yerbateros, was the only person detained.
But Brítez, he tells The Paraguay Post, wasn’t even there.
According to the farmer, he was arrested in retaliation for opposing the irregular installation of a cyanidation pond whose construction had been rejected by MADES, Paraguay’s environment ministry, for failing to comply with regulations.
He says his fellow yerba growers called him to raise the alarm about the skirmish while he was at home early on January 10. He called 911, asking local police to intervene, and the press.
At 8am, he even took part in a radio show with the local mayor, Óscar Chávez, where they discussed the unfolding stand-off.
Still, Brítez was arrested, spending 48 hours in a squalid cell, where his health dramatically deteriorated. But his desire to defend his crop, and his community, remains undimmed.
“I think that God chose me for this battle,” he continues, “because my spiritual strength is extraordinary.”
Losses worth thousands
Gerardo Loris is just one of those affected by unregulated mining. He says that since a leaching pond was installed 150 metres from his fence in June 2023, six of his cows have died.
A study he later had carried out, he adds, showed that his animals had died from drinking contaminated water.
In the same year, local yerba packager Aromática rejected some 70,000 kilos of the bitter leaf that Loris, his brother and niece had harvested, citing the proximity of the cyanide-filled mining crater to the family plantation.
Taken together, he says, the family lost $5,000 worth of produce: a major hit for small producers like them. They were among the first people to protest the use of cyanide by local miners in September 2023.
“Quit screwing around”
In an interview with The Paraguay Post, Chávez, the local mayor, says the conflict over cyanide has erupted because locals are poorly informed about its effects.
He notes that the substance is recommended under the Minamata convention as a safer substitute for mercury-based extraction.
But he accepts some aren’t using the chemical ponds responsibly, saying “there are always wrong-headed people who want to do things badly despite our efforts.”
He says that there are 200 such operations in Paso Yobai, and that half of their owners live in Asunción, Paraguay’s capital.
“I think the only way forward in this situation is if we all speak the same language and quit screwing around,” Chávez concludes.
Baruja, the lawyer representing the yerba growers’ association, counters that more than 300 bleaching ponds are currently at work around Paso Yobai, of which 123 appear on the district’s official register. Only 50 have a valid environmental permit from MADES.
What health effects?
Vicente López, the director of Paso Yobai’s health clinic, tells the Post that the authorities are constantly monitoring patients for signs of adverse effects of mining. He denied that illnesses afflicting locals have been caused by cyanide poisoning.
He says that a register given to him by Paraguay’s health ministry on February 14 featured 1,300 patients presenting with nausea, 800 with headaches, 10 miscarriages and an undetermined number of cases of epilepsy. “Normal figures for a population of 30,000,” López added.
He said cases of goitre, a thyroid condition, are yet to be reported. But if they were, he argued, they would be attributable to the small amounts of cyanide that manioc, the Paraguayan staple crop, contains in its pre-cooked form.
“All the doctors have said that there are no cases of severe poisoning,” López adds. “We did have a patient who died from careless handling of the chemical, but that’s another matter.”
Gold versus green
The struggle for the future of Paso Yobai – the centuries-old, sustainable yerba mate business versus the intoxicating gold rush – is only set to grow in intensity.
Having already tripled to $3200 per ounce in the space of a decade, forecasters think the international gold price could reach $6000 per ounce by 2029 as investors seek a safe haven from global economic turmoil in the precious metal.
Brítez, the yerba grower, says an uproar by his neighbours and the work of his lawyer are to thank for springing him out of jail. He is now spending six months of pre-trial detention under house arrest.
He hopes to annul the preventative measure as soon as possible so he can return to his crops, and his struggle for nature. “Mark my words,” he says, “we can still turn things around in Paso Yobai.”
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