Peru's Madre de Dios region offers a stark example of the deforestation and environmental devastation that results from unchecked illegal mining.
Sebastian Castañeda and Paula Dupraz-Dobias
Gold extraction is permitted in the mining corridor – an area of roughly 500,000 hectares in Madre de Dios – provided that environmental and social standards are upheld.
Sebastian Castañeda and Paula Dupraz-Dobias
A person pans gold along the banks of the Pakiri River in Peru.
Sebastian Castañeda and Paula Dupraz-Dobias
A worker at a chute in a mining concession in Peru. As ore is emptied from a truck onto the chute, water separates the gold from other matter. The precious metal is then caught in a mat below.
Sebastian Castañeda and Paula Dupraz-Dobias
Artisanal gold miners in Peru's Amazon Basin sometimes use water pumping engines to flush ore. When police catch miners operating in illegal areas, such as natural reserves, they typically destroy their equipment.
Keystone / Rodrigo Abd
In the Madre de Dios region of southeastern Peru, authorities have long waged a losing battle against thousands of illegal gold miners.
Sebastian Castañeda and Paula Dupraz-Dobias
In February 2019, Peru launched Operation Mercury with the goal of eradicating illegal gold mining. The focal point was an environmentally devastated pocket of the southern Peruvian Amazon known as La Pampa.
Sebastian Castañeda and Paula Dupraz-Dobias
Reforestation efforts underway at the concession of Peruvian miner Juan Ttamina in Madre de Dios, Peru. Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon as a result of illegal gold mining hit record numbers in 2017 and 2018.
Sebastian Castañeda and Paula Dupraz-Dobias
The jungle mining town of Delta 1 in Madre de Dios, Peru.
Sebastian Castañeda and Paula Dupraz-Dobias
Wildcat mining has devastated large chunks of the Peruvian Amazon, where gold is extracted and makes its way to the refineries and banks in Switzerland.
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swissinfo.ch
swissinfo.ch visited the southeastern region of Madre de Dios and spoke to artisanal miners who have benefited from the gold rush to educate their families and create jobs, as well as those who have fallen afoul of the law.
In the past three decades, 960 square kilometres of forests were lost here to gold mining, according to The Center for Amazon Scientific Innovation. Military campaigns regularly take down illegal mining outposts, but miners soon resume their activities. The latest crackdown came in 2019 when the the Peruvian army backed by policemen launched Operation Mercury.
At the same time, authorities are trying to incentivise formal mining by speeding up a certification scheme for miners who meet environmental and social standards.
A major challenge for the gold industry, in which Swiss refiners play a pivotal role, is that shady gold traders in Peru mix legally-mined gold with gold extracted from illegal areas. Money-laundering and a lack of invoicing make for an untraceable supply chain. Swiss refiner Metalor left Peru after its main supplier there came under criminal investigation.
Read our in-depth investigation to learn more about how dirty gold from Peru ends up in Switzerland.
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Why Switzerland struggles with dirty gold
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With gold prices the highest they’ve been in nearly a decade, the quest for the precious metal is heating up in a remote area of Peru where mining and criminal activities overlap.
Switzerland, the world’s hub for gold refining, is watching closely.
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
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You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.