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When in the past I have been around toxic substances, especially liquids like solvents and the like, I have interacted with this material in the anthropoligical sense of the taboo. Your interest in masculinity raises the question of toxics of the body, rather than just toxics outside the body. By that I mean public health discourse about both disease-bearing living pathogens and waste products. The way these men spoke so callously about the mercury's beauty reminds me of this recent trend in masculinity, both straight and gay, to celebrate and to cherish men's semen.

Would the river be this brown without deforestation and mining? Is the subject standing in this water?

deforested landscape; polluted water

The critical commentary offers quantitative data re acres of rainforest destroyed (that which appears to be immediately represented by the photo) and 40% of population affected by mercury contamination.  There are no people in this photo, or in any of the photos.  Is that deliberate?  Is the idea not to put a human face on the toxicant contamination b/c it's too 'sentimental' or 'invasive'?  This contrasts the Minimata photos of the clawed hand.  Part of me wonders why there's an avoidance of representing the toxicity as embodied in the people--the miners: it this b

Mud against blue skies

My eye is drawn to the debris and then through the space to walk through between two small embankments; then toward the horizon of scattered trees and the tilt of the landscape through the framing aslant.  My eye ends on the muddy water pool to the right.

The image seems to communicate environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity in what was once a lush rainforest. 

liquidification

photograph

My eye wanders in search of human bodies - I see initially the (environmental) impacts of humanity without the human subjects themselves. What happens to this area after it has been mined of its value in gold?