🔗 Share this article

An illegal gold rush has led to the destruction of 140,000 hectares of rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon, accelerating as armed foreign factions enter the area to capitalize on record gold prices, based on findings.

About five hundred forty square miles of land have been cleared for mining in the Peruvian nation since the mid-1980s, and the ecological damage is growing at an alarming rate throughout Peru, research discovered.

This mining boom is also polluting its waterways. Illegal miners use floating excavation machines – machines that chew up and spit out riverbeds – leaving harmful mercury employed to separate gold from soil in their wake.

Detailed satellite photographs allowed analysts to identify dredges alongside deforestation for the initial instance, showing that the ecological disaster previously limited to the south of the country was creeping north.

“We used to only see it in the Madre de Dios region but now we’re seeing it everywhere,” stated an official from the monitoring project.

Gold values surpassed four thousand dollars for the initial occasion this period on global exchanges as worldwide concerns rose about financial fragility. Native communities have sounded the alarm that as the price soars, militant factions were more frequently tearing down their woodlands and contaminating their water sources in pursuit of the valuable mineral.

Aerial images 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 noted, pointing to a limited area of the extensive pattern of deforestation mapped in the report. “Consider this multiplied to 140,000 hectares.”

The mercury residues build up in fish and pass to the people who consume them, causing health and cognitive issues such as birth defects and developmental delays.

A recent study of communities along riverbanks in Peru’s northernmost region of Loreto found the average concentration of mercury was almost quadruple the safe threshold set by global health authorities.

Research found that 225 rivers and streams have been affected, with 989 dredges spotted in Loreto since recent years – including two hundred seventy-five this year alone on the Nanay River, a tributary of the Amazon River that is the lifeblood of natural habitats and many native populations.

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

Local communities began preventing extractors from moving along the River Tigre in the region recently, resulting in armed clashes with armed intruders. “We have no choice but to fight back but we are alone. Government authorities is nowhere to be seen,” he stated with anger.

Extraction activities is mostly located in the Madre de Dios region in southern Peru but new hotspots are developing in northern regions in Loreto, Amazonas, Huánuco, Pasco and Ucayali.

They are small but once extraction begins it could expand quickly, an expert noted, adding that the study was a insight into what was occurring across the broader Amazon region.

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

Research showed more dredges appearing on Peru’s jungle frontiers with adjacent nations.

As gold values exceed four thousand dollars per ounce, international armed factions are more frequently entering across the border into Peru’s lawless jungles where government officials are doing little to stop them, as stated by an expert on crime.

Criminal networks, including groups from Colombia and Brazil, are increasingly active across the border.

“Global criminal syndicates trafficking cocaine and laundering profits through illegal gold mining – now with peak prices yielding high profits – are alongside a administration that has failed to act decisively against organised crime,” the expert remarked.

A political coalition of South American countries told Peru to address unlawful extraction or it could be subject to penalties.

But an expert commented: “Gold is just so profitable right now. I don’t see any signs of a decline in value, so it’s probably going to deteriorate before it gets better.”