🔗 Share this article

A surge in unlawful mining has resulted in the clearing of 140,000 hectares of tropical forest in the Peruvian Amazon, intensifying as armed foreign factions enter the area to profit from all-time high gold values, according to a report.

About five hundred forty square miles of land have been converted for extraction activities in the South American country since the mid-1980s, and the environmental destruction is spreading rapidly across the country, research revealed.

The gold rush is also polluting its waterways. Unlawful extractors use dredges – machines that chew up and spit out river bottoms – leaving harmful mercury used to extract gold from soil in their path.

Ultra-high resolution aerial images enabled researchers to identify mining equipment alongside forest loss for the initial instance, showing that the ecological disaster once confined to the southern part of the country was spreading northward.

“Initially, it was only observed in Madre de Dios but now we’re seeing it everywhere,” commented a director from the monitoring project.

Gold values surpassed four thousand dollars for the initial occasion this period on global exchanges as worldwide concerns increased about economic instability. Native communities have raised concerns that as the price soars, militant factions were more frequently destroying their forests and poisoning their rivers in search for the valuable mineral.

Satellite photos show that once dense swathes of green jungle are being converted into barren landscapes of grey earth pocked with stagnant pools of green water.

“This small section is just a minor example,” a researcher remarked, indicating a limited area of the extensive pattern of deforestation mapped in the report. “Consider this multiplied to one hundred forty thousand hectares.”

Mercury contamination build up in aquatic life and pass to the populations who eat them, causing health and cognitive issues such as congenital disorders and developmental delays.

An ongoing investigation of riverside communities in Peru’s northernmost region of the Loreto region found the average concentration of mercury was nearly four times the safe threshold set by global health authorities.

Analysis found that hundreds of waterways have been affected, with nearly a thousand dredging machines spotted in the region since recent years – among them 275 in the current year on the Nanay River, a tributary of the Amazon that is the vital source of natural habitats and many native populations.

“They are poisoning our rivers – it’s the water that we drink,” said a representative of multiple local communities in the area.

Residents began blocking miners from advancing up the Tigre River in the region 40 days ago, resulting in armed clashes with armed intruders. “We are forced to defend ourselves but we are alone. The state is nowhere to be seen,” he stated frustrated.

Extraction activities remains concentrated in the Madre de Dios region in the south of the country but new hotspots are appearing farther north in multiple provinces.

These areas are limited but once extraction begins it could expand quickly, an expert said, adding that the study was a glimpse into what was happening across the rest of the Amazon.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to look in this detail at a nation but I think in Brazil, Bolivia and Colombia we are going to see exactly the same thing,” he added.

Research showed more dredges appearing on Peru’s forest borders with adjacent nations.

As gold values exceed four thousand dollars per ounce, foreign, armed groups are more frequently entering across the border into unregulated forest areas where government officials are taking minimal action to stop them, according to an expert on crime.

Illegal organizations, including groups from neighboring countries, are more involved in the region.

“Global criminal syndicates involved in drug trade and concealing illicit gains through unlawful extraction – now with peak prices providing hefty returns – are alongside a government that has not been a serious obstacle against organised crime,” the expert remarked.

An intergovernmental group of Latin American nations told Peru to address illegal mining or it could be subject to penalties.

But an expert commented: “Gold is just so profitable right now. There are no indications of a decline in value, so it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.”