内容摘要：That September night in 2022 marked a turning point for Tesfaye. He mines the scene in

That September night in 2022 marked a turning point for Tesfaye. He mines the scene in

A fisherman drags a shark to shore on the Yemeni island of Socotra on Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)The sunrise appears between the branches of a dragon’s blood tree on the Yemeni island of Socotra, on Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)

The sunrise appears between the branches of a dragon’s blood tree on the Yemeni island of Socotra, on Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)Follow Annika Hammerschlag on InstagramThe Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit

KEDOUGOU, Senegal (AP) — The quickest way to separate gold from rock, Sadio Camara says, is with a drop of mercury. She empties a dime-sized packet of the silvery liquid into a plastic bucket of muddy sediment outside her home in southeastern Senegal. With bare hands and no mask, she swirls the mixture as her children look on.“I know mercury isn’t good for your health — that’s why I don’t drink the water it comes into contact with,” she said. “I only process small amounts of gold, so there’s no danger.”

But even small-scale exposure can carry serious risks.

Children sit nearby as Sadio Camara, a gold processor, vaporizes mercury to separate and retrieve gold at her home in the Kedougou region of Senegal on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at

RIOHACHA, Colombia (AP) — Climate change is rapidly altering the way of life of the Indigenous Wayuu people, a semi-nomadic Indigenous group living in the arid La Guajira region, which spans northern Colombia and Venezuela.Prolonged droughts, intensified by climate change, have worsened water scarcity, straining the Wayuu’s already limited access to drinking water and resources for livestock and agriculture. As rainfall becomes more erratic, food insecurity rises, with crops failing and livestock struggling to survive.

Health risks also escalate, with heat waves increasing dehydration and extreme weather events leading to flooding and waterborne diseases.Their way of life is also being threatened as companies and the government — who want to capitalize on the region’s wind potential — seek to