A captivating image of the Peruvian Amazon seen from space has become a remarkable reminder of the desolation caused by gold mining in the region.
The breathtaking photograph, captured by a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station, shows two parallel but very different rivers – one natural and the other man-made – meandering through what was once a thriving rainforest. Now, however, rampant illegal mining has taken over much of the South American country’s gold reserves and destroyed more than 250,000 acres of forest in the process, according to environmental reports.
The left side of the image shows the narrow Inambari River, but it is the scene on the right that draws attention with a winding area illuminated by kilometers of gold prospecting wells.
The rare image required cloudless weather conditions and for the sun to cast its light at a very specific angle, called a “brightness point”, to create the bright effect.
Independent miners, called prospectors, are responsible for the luminescent belt of the iconic Amazon rainforest. In search of a better life, they went down to Madre de Dios, in Peru, where a gold rush started since the 1980s, caused by an increase in the price of precious metal. The country is the sixth largest gold producer in the world. In 2017, a study estimated that about 155 metric tons were removed from the Peruvian Amazon.
His exaggerated search for wealth left in his wake a cemetery of wildlife and tropical vegetation, and the land polluted by mercury – a by-product of the gold extraction process. The sludge was so rich that it was possible to forge 10 to 15 grams of gold a day. Gold costs just over $ 1,800 an ounce, according to Nasdaq, or about $ 64.50 an ounce.
For years, the lawless La Pampa, a center of the hostile illegal mining industry, has been known to support “prostitution, modern slavery and organized crime”, and has long been inaccessible to outsiders, according to a report by 2020 in Nature. Scientists and terrestrial authorities could only observe from a satellite, while huge areas of tropical forest were cut down for surface prospecting.
In 2019, the Peruvian government declared martial law in the region, expelling tens of thousands of miners who depended on this work for a living. Since then, conservation biologists have started working with Peru to investigate which tree species can survive the now hostile ecosystem.