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A surge in unlawful mining has resulted in the clearing of 140,000 hectares of rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon, accelerating as foreign, armed groups enter the region to profit from all-time high gold values, as per a recent study.

About 540 square miles of land have been cleared for mining in the South American country since 1984, and the environmental destruction is spreading rapidly throughout Peru, investigations discovered.

The gold rush is also polluting its waterways. Illegal miners use dredges – equipment that chew up and spit out river bottoms – leaving harmful mercury used to extract gold from soil in their path.

Detailed satellite photographs allowed researchers to detect dredges alongside forest loss for the first time, showing that the environmental crisis once confined to the southern part of the country was spreading northward.

“Initially, it was only observed in Madre de Dios but now we’re seeing it everywhere,” stated a director involved in the research.

The price of gold topped $4,000 for the first time this period on global exchanges as global anxiety rose about financial fragility. Indigenous groups have raised concerns that as the value climbs, armed groups were increasingly destroying their woodlands and poisoning their water sources in pursuit of the valuable mineral.

Aerial images show that once dense swathes of green jungle are being converted into lifeless moonscapes of barren soil marked by stagnant pools of green water.

“This small section is just a tiny sample,” an expert remarked, pointing to a small section of the extensive pattern of forest clearance mapped in the report. “Imagine this expanded to one hundred forty thousand hectares.”

The mercury residues accumulate in aquatic life and pass to the populations who consume them, leading to health and cognitive issues such as birth defects and developmental delays.

A recent investigation of communities along riverbanks in Peru’s far north of Loreto found the average concentration of mercury was almost quadruple the World Health Organization’s recommended limit.

Research found that hundreds of waterways have been affected, with 989 dredges spotted in the region since 2017 – among them 275 this year alone on the Nanay waterway, a tributary of the Amazon that is the vital source of ecosystems and dozens of Indigenous communities.

“Our waterways are being contaminated – it’s the drinking water that we consume,” said a spokesperson of several riverside communities in the area.

Local communities began blocking miners from moving along the Tigre River in Loreto 40 days ago, leading to gunfights with militant groups. “We have no choice but to fight back but we are alone. The state is absent,” he stated with anger.

Extraction activities is mostly located in the southern area of Madre de Dios in southern Peru but emerging zones are developing farther north in multiple provinces.

They are small but once mining is established it could grow rapidly, a researcher said, stating that the report was a insight into what was happening across the rest of the Amazon.

“It marks the initial occasion we’ve been able to look in this detail at a country but I think in Brazil, Bolivia and Colombia we are going to see similar patterns,” he commented.

Research showed additional mining equipment being detected on Peru’s jungle frontiers with adjacent nations.

As gold values exceed four thousand dollars per ounce, international armed factions are increasingly venturing into Peruvian territory into unregulated forest areas where local authorities are taking minimal action to stop them, according to a criminologist.

Criminal networks, including factions from neighboring countries, are more involved across the border.

“Global criminal syndicates involved in drug trade and concealing illicit gains through unlawful extraction – amid record values providing hefty returns – are alongside a government that has not been a serious obstacle against organised crime,” the analyst stated.

A political coalition of South American countries instructed Peru to address unlawful extraction or it could face economic sanctions.

But a researcher commented: “Gold is just so profitable at present. I don’t see any signs of prices going down, so it’s probably going to deteriorate before it gets better.”