Between 2019 and 2020, the Peruvian government cracked down on illegal gold mining in Madre de Dios, its region in the southeastern Amazon, an unprecedented initiative dubbed “Operation Mercury. “But according to a recent study, miners are returning to the spaces from which they were propelled through operations, and the repressive measures were eased in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government’s coordinated effort resulted in a primary victory for the Peruvian state against the miners of La Pampa, a 100,000-hectare (250,000-acre) expanse in the buffer zone of the Tambopata National Reserve, an Amazonian park teeming with biodiversity. It’s on the south side of the Interoceanic Highway, which connects Peru’s Pacific ports to Brazil’s Atlantic coast.
Artisanal gold mining, 90% of which is illegal or informal, accounts for at least part of the economy in the populated Madre de Dios region and supports about 50,000 miners, according to a 2022 USAID study.
But this destructive activity deforested at least 100,000 hectares of the Madre de Dios Amazon rainforest between 1990 and 2020, and it is estimated that about 78% of adults in Puerto Maldonado, the state capital, have mercury grades above protection standards, due to poor mining. practices, according to the USAID study.
Since the start of Operation Mercury, which deployed 1,200 police, 300 infantrymen and 70 prosecutors, deforestation caused by illegal mining has been reduced by 92 percent, from 173 to 14 hectares (427. 5 to 35 acres) per month, according to satellite imagery from the Andean Amazon Project Monitoring (MAAP). Overall, as a result of mercury contamination, deforestation related to gold mining decreased by 78% at six mining sites in Madre de Dios, adding La Pampa, according to the same MAAP report.
According to a recent study published in Conservation Letters, most miners operating in the attacked areas crossed the north side of the Interoceanic Highway, in an area where occasional mining was allowed, known as the government-designated “mining corridor. ” .
The coordinated crackdown has achieved its main goal of ending illegal mining operations and keeping miners out. Authorities have set up three police bases in the Doleading and are carrying out mining raids to destroy devices and arrest miners, according to the report.
“There’s a very immediate movement of La Pampa’s illegal domain across the street,” said study co-author Luis E. Fernandez, executive director of the Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation at Wake Forest University, founded in Madre de Dios.
While the intervention was successful in preventing illegal gold mining activity in La Pampa, activity in legal spaces increased, triggering many of the same environmental concerns, namely the use of mercury to extract gold, according to the study.
“[Operation Mercury] is very effective in the field of operation,” said Fernandez, who has worked in Madre de Dios off and on for more than two decades. “But there was no deterrent effect. It controlled mining only in one specific area: La Pampa. In other domains, it’s business as usual.
“When you have a decision to govern mining then you can have people stop illegal activities and those activities can be moved to places where they are legal,” report co-author Miles Silman, a professor of conservation biology at Wake Forest, told Mongabay. “Which is exactly what Operation Mercury did, the miners that were in illegal areas went back to areas that were titled for mining. What happened is that the government didn’t follow through with the other stages.”
Minors began returning to “police-controlled spaces and then other spaces,” Silman added, as controls eased the pandemic as officials were deployed to enforce a strict lockdown.
“Environmentalists have very little focus on law enforcement, but without it there is no sustainability,” he said.
While the Operation Mercury raids continued until the end of 2020, since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, there was relief in the presence of the army and police on bases, as well as deep budget cuts.
“The pandemic started and it’s a turning point,” said Martín Arana, a representative of the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development in Peru, which has conducted studies on illegal mining in the country. The pandemic was a “substantial setback” for Operation Mercury’s investment, as the budget of all departments was redirected to deal with the public health emergency.
The government of interim President Francisco Sagasti has attempted to revive the anti-mine initiative with the “Restoration Plan. “But the multiple ministerial adjustments that have occurred with the new government of Pedro Castillo, in office from July 2021 until his dismissal in December 2022 In 2019, the investment for the “reduction of illegal mining” in Madre de Dios and other parts of the country amounted to 33 million soles ($9. 9 million at the time); This year, that figure has fallen to 8. 4 million soles ($2. 2 million), according to government figures.
“All the political instability which continues to this day means everything that had been achieved is lost,” Arana said.
After the occupation of Mercury, mining declined by 70 to 90 percent, according to the study, and over the next two years, miners had virtually abandoned nearly all target spaces. The number of mining shafts or ponds dug in illegal mining spaces decreased by up to 5% per year, up to an increase of 33-90% per year before the intervention.
Deforested areas experienced revegetation at a rate of 100-300 hectares (250-740 acres) per year. Most of the revegetation occurred on the edges of deforested areas, with the highest revegetation in southern La Pampa. However, this progress was more than offset by increases in deforestation in legal mining areas north of the Interoceanic Highway. Here, forest was lost at rates of 300-500 hectares (740-1,240 acres) per year, and mining pond areas also increased by 42-83%.
To assess the effect of Operation Mercury on mining activity, the research team relied on satellite data from 2016 to 2021.
Using radar and multispectral data, they were able to quantify changes in water, water quality, mining pond areas, and deforestation in La Pampa from before, during, and after the intervention.
Mining ponds typically show up as yellow to brown; this color is associated with high levels of suspended sediment in the water — a marker for gold mining activity, Fernández said.
“We use the color changes in the mining ponds as a proxy for [mining] activity,” he told Mongabay. As mining ceases and ponds are abandoned, the sediment settles, and the degree of yellowness diminishes — a pattern the researchers found in the raided areas following Operation Mercury.
“On the contrary, when you pick up the cappuccino color, we know that it is extracted again,” adds Fernández.
Recent MAAP satellite imagery shows that mining infrastructure has been restored, expanding by 400% in La Pampa compared to 2020. But unlike before, mining today is more commonly located in waste pits and lagoons, as much of the forest cover has disappeared.
The return of illegal mining has led to the return of crime and violence, associated with transnational organized criminal gangs. The vast majority of mining activity is illegal or unauthorized, does not pay taxes and attracts criminal groups involved in human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of underage women and fashionable slavery, Arana said.
“Now there are bigger fish eating the ones of the past,” he said, referring to the presence of new, tougher organized criminal groups.
Meanwhile, scientists continue to examine the poisonous effects of residual mercury used in illegal gold mining. As they return to abandoned mine ponds, scientists are also reading the consequences, and the effects are expected to be published soon.
“The challenge is that you’re going to enjoy mercury methylation as you start collecting biological matter, so there’s going to be a lot of mercury cycles,” Silman said.
As illegal gold mining continues to proliferate in the Amazon, Madre de Dios believes the presence of the state is key to controlling its spread, Silman said.
Quote:
Dethier, E. N., Silman, M. R., Fernandez, L. E., Espejo, J. C., Alqahtani, S., Pauca, P., & Lutz, D. A. (2023). Operation Mercury: Impacts of national‐level armed forces intervention and anticorruption strategy on artisanal gold mining and water quality in the Peruvian Amazon. Conservation Letters, 16(5). doi:10.1111/conl.12978
Header image: Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon. Photo via Rhett A. Butler.
Related reading
Qualified success: What’s next for Peru’s Operation Mercury?
COMMENTS: Use this form to send a message to the recipient of this message. If you would like to post a public comment, you can do so at the bottom of the page.
View Specific Feeds
Mongabay is an American non-profit platform on conservation and environmental science. Our EIN or tax number is 45-3714703.