According to several reports, including the Global Mercury Assessment (GMA) developed by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) in 2002, levels of mercury in the environment have increased considerably from the beginning of the industrial era. It has been determined with great exactitude, that mercury is a persistent and accumulative pollutant, which enters trophic levels of food chain in a well-known dangerous form known as methylmercury. Mercury contamination has global character and circulates around the planet, affecting as distant places as the Arctic.