Thai rivers threatened by Myanmar's unregulated mining boom: ‘don't want to eat the fish'
A sprawling new mine is gouged into the lush rolling hills of northeast
Myanmar , where civil war has weakened the government's already feeble writ, and pollution levels are rising downstream in Thailand.
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The complex is one of around a dozen extraction operations that have sprung up in Shan state since around 2022, in territory controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), one of conflict-wracked Myanmar's largest and best-equipped ethnic armed groups.
A few kilometres away across the border, locals and officials in
Thailand believe toxic waste is washing downstream from the mines into the Kok River, which flows through the kingdom's far north on its way to join the mighty Mekong.
Thai authorities say they have
detected abnormally high arsenic levels in their waterways, which could pose a risk to aquatic life and people further up the food chain.
The price fisherman Sawat Kaewdam gets for his catch has fallen by almost half, because locals fear contamination. 'They say: 'There's arsenic. I don't want to eat that fish,'' he said.
Thai fisherman Sawat Kaewdam sorts his fishing net along the banks of the Mekong River in the Golden Triangle region in northern Thailand's Chiang Rai province. Photo: AFP
Tests in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai by a government pollution agency found levels of the toxic element as high as 49mcg per litre (0.26 gallon) of river water – nearly five times international drinking water standards.
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