![]() “You squeeze a balloon in one part, and it pops out the other.” “They call it the balloon effect,” says Fernandez. The Peruvian military bombed illegal mining equipment, patrolled protected zones and arrested illegal gold miners.īut many of these efforts have proved ineffective in the face of rising gold prices. The most recent and largest effort in 2019, called Operation Mercurio, aimed to remove La Pampas, the largest illegal mining town in the region. The Peruvian government has tried to prevent illegal gold mining in Madre de Dios for over a decade through military interventions. Tuna in oceans around the world accumulate mercury that came from gold mining operations, such as those in Madre de Dios. ![]() Much of the mercury used in gold mining also ends up in the atmosphere and eventually contaminates global seafood stocks. Gold miners have some of the highest documented mercury exposures ever recorded. Mercury is a neurotoxin that poisons the nervous system. The mercury used in gold mining can also poison local water systems, contaminating the wildlife and people downstream. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)īut this type of gold mining is environmentally disastrous, choking rivers and deforesting the land. Heavy metals get caught in the towel fibres, and mercury is used to collect the gold.Ī destroyed illegal mining camp in Peru’s Tambopata province. Miners in the Madre de Dios region use the same basic tools as miners did in the 1850s gold rushes in North America: a high pressure hose to blast off layers of rock and a handmade sluice lined with towels to collect the runoff. ![]() While still in early stages, this novel innovation aims to help preserve the Amazon and the health of local communities in Peru, Latin America’s largest gold producer. ![]() NASA is backing the use of machine learning-enhanced satellite technology to capture the subtle movements of illegal gold mining in climate-sensitive areas of the world. However, artificial intelligence offers new hope. Multiple government crackdowns have tried to stamp out these artisanal gold mining activities to protect the national forests, but illegal operations are often able to shift location without attracting attention, creating a moving - and hard to find - target. Over the past decade, small-scale illegal gold miners have transformed the landscape from tree-covered marshlands to a desert pockmarked with polluted ponds, leaking mercury into the local food web. In the Madre de Dios region of Peru, a human-made wasteland brushes up against the border of the Amazonian rainforest. ![]()
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