NASA photo shows ‘golden’ Peruvian Amazon rivers

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What appear to be rivers of gold flowing through the Amazon rainforest in Madre de Dios state in eastern Peru are actually prospecting wells, likely left by independent miners, according to the observatory of the Earth from NASA, which released the photo taken by one of its astronauts.

The pits are normally hidden from view of those on the ISS, but stand out in this photo due to the reflected sunlight.

The image shows the Inambari River and a number of pits surrounded by deforested areas of muddy spoil.

Independent gold mining supports tens of thousands of people in the Madre de Dios region, making it one of the largest unregistered mining industries in the world, according to NASA.

Mining is also the main driver of deforestation in the region, and the mercury used to extract the gold pollutes the waterways, the agency added.

The modern gold rush destroying the Amazon

Gold exploration in the region has grown since the inauguration of the South Interoceanic Route in 2011 made the area more accessible.

The only road link between Brazil and Peru was meant to boost trade and tourism, but “deforestation could be the highway’s most important result,” NASA said.

The photo, released earlier this month, was taken on December 24.

Madre de Dios is a pristine piece of the Amazon the size of South Carolina, where macaws and monkeys, jaguars and butterflies thrive. But while parts of Madre de Dios, such as the Tambopata National Reserve, are protected from mining, hundreds of square kilometers of the region’s rainforest have been turned into a treeless and toxic wasteland.

Increases in the price of gold in recent years have created booming towns in the jungle, with pop-up brothels and shootings, as tens of thousands of people from all over Peru have joined in a rush. modern gold.

Record gold mining levels destroy one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, study finds

In January 2019, a scientific study found that deforestation from gold mines destroyed about 22,930 acres of the Peruvian Amazon in 2018, according to the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project group, known as MAAP. This is the highest annual total on record since 1985, based on research conducted by the Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation at Wake Forest University.

Deforestation in 2018 eclipsed the previous record of 2017, when about 22,635 acres of forest were cut down by gold miners, according to MAAP.

This means that in two years, gold mines have decimated the equivalent of more than 34,000 American football fields in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest, according to the MAAP analysis.

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