Illegal Gold Mining, Mercury Contamination and Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon

Join us on Thursday, Sept. 25 at 6:00pm at this academic year’s first Bay Area Tropical Forest Network (BATFN) event, held at the Carnegie Department of Global Ecology (260 Panama Street) on Stanford Campus.

• Title: Illegal Gold Mining, Mercury Contamination and Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon
  
  Speaker: Luis E. Fernandez is a tropical ecologist at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, and is the director of the Carnegie Amazon Mercury Project (CAMEP), a multi-institution research initiative that examines the impacts of artisanal gold mining, mercury contamination and deforestation on natural and human ecosystems in the Madre De Dios region of the Peruvian Amazon.
  
  Description: Luis will discuss the dynamics that have made artisanal gold mining both the primary driver of deforestation in the Western Amazon and the number one source of anthropogenic mercury in the world today, and describe its effects on forests, wildlife and humans.

Food and drinks will be served starting at 6pm, and Luis will speak around 7pm with discussion to follow.

The event is free and open to all—please feel free to forward to your friends. To RSVP, please visit the BATFN Facebook page or reply to Kelly McManus (mcmanusk@stanford.edu). We hope to see you there!

BATFN is an informal social network in the Bay Area broadly interested in tropical forest conservation and ecology. We gather monthly, typically for a happy hour beverage in the Peninsula area. The event is free and we provide snacks and drinks. Think Green Drinks but with a focus on forests.

Our goal is to foster peer-to-peer networking in a relaxed atmosphere where ideas, data, and collaboration flow freely. This is a great opportunity to connect with media, scientists, economists, foundations, activists, artists and many others thinking about these issues. Everyone is welcome! It is a great way to get in touch with other people working on similar interests or to learn more about current issues and initiatives in forest conservation.

Web: http://tropicalforestnetwork.org/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=95624713016&ref=nf