There appears to be no respite from environmental degradation for the prized Amazon rainforests as successive reports continue to bring grim news of one economic pursuit or another that relentlessly degrades a swathe of real estate widely described as ‘the lungs of the world’.
Peru has the second-largest portion of the Amazon rainforest after Brazil and illegal gold mining is reportedly particularly prevalent in areas like La Pampa in the Madre de Dios region of Peru, where gold is abundant and regulation difficult to enforce. As gold prices have climbed in recent years, illegal alluvial gold mining has expanded in Madre de Dios, with over 60,000 hectares of land having been destroyed, and the health of communities living in the region compromised on account of unregulated use of mercury in mining.
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