🔗 Share this article

A surge in unlawful mining has led to the destruction of 140,000 hectares of tropical forest in the Peruvian Amazon, intensifying as armed foreign factions move into the area to capitalize on record gold prices, based on findings.

About 540 square miles of land have been cleared for mining in the Peruvian nation since the mid-1980s, and the environmental destruction is expanding quickly throughout Peru, investigations revealed.

This mining boom is also contaminating its rivers and streams. Illegal miners use floating excavation machines – machines that chew up and spit out riverbeds – leaving toxic mercury used to extract gold from soil in their path.

Detailed satellite photographs allowed analysts to identify mining equipment together with forest loss for the initial instance, revealing that the environmental crisis previously limited 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 an official involved in the research.

The price of gold topped $4,000 for the initial occasion this week on global exchanges as global anxiety increased about financial fragility. Native communities have raised concerns that as the price soars, armed groups were increasingly tearing down their forests and contaminating their rivers in pursuit of the precious metal.

Aerial images show that previously lush forest areas are being converted into barren landscapes of barren soil marked by standing water of green water.

“This small section is just a minor example,” an expert remarked, indicating a small section of the extensive pattern of forest clearance documented in the study. “Imagine this expanded to 140,000 hectares.”

Mercury contamination accumulate in aquatic life and pass to the populations who consume them, leading to health and cognitive issues such as birth defects and learning difficulties.

A recent study of riverside communities in Peru’s far north of Loreto found the median level of mercury was almost quadruple the World Health Organization’s recommended limit.

Research found that 225 rivers and streams have been affected, with nearly a thousand dredging machines observed in Loreto since 2017 – including 275 this year alone on the Nanay waterway, a branch of the Amazon River that is the lifeblood of natural habitats and dozens of Indigenous communities.

“They are poisoning our rivers – it’s the drinking water that we consume,” said a spokesperson of multiple local communities in Loreto.

Residents began blocking miners from moving along the River Tigre in Loreto recently, leading to armed clashes with militant groups. “We are forced to defend ourselves but we are unsupported. Government authorities is nowhere to be seen,” he stated with anger.

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

These areas are limited but once mining is established it could expand quickly, a researcher said, stating that the study was a insight into what was happening across the rest of the Amazon.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to examine so closely at a country but I think in neighboring countries we are going to see exactly the same thing,” he commented.

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

With gold prices surpassing $4,000 an ounce, international armed factions are increasingly venturing across the border into unregulated forest areas where government officials are doing little to halt their activities, as stated by an expert on crime.

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

“Global criminal syndicates involved in drug trade and laundering profits through unlawful extraction – amid record values providing hefty returns – are combined with a administration that has not been a serious obstacle against organised crime,” the expert remarked.

A political coalition of South American countries told Peru to get serious about unlawful extraction or it could face economic sanctions.

But a researcher said: “Gold is just so profitable right now. There are no indications of prices going down, so it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.”