Tag Archives: Madre de Dios

Mongabay: Amazon prosecutors get sharper impact tool to charge illegal gold dealers

Small-scale illegal gold mining is widespread throughout much of the Peruvian Amazon, but especially in Madre de Dios, causing enormous harm to the environment and human population in what’s recognized as a biodiversity hotspot. The Peruvian government has been sporadic in its attempts to curtail illegal mining over the years. In 2023, Peru adopted the Mining Impacts Calculator for use by law enforcement and prosecutors to better fight illegal gold mining. Image by Enrique Ortiz.

Enrique Ortiz, a good friend for many years, and a leading Peruvian environmental biologist with Andes Amazon Fund in the United States, sends out to a large email group new studies he thinks would be of interest on matters related to climate change, ecosystem services, biodiversity and environmental assaults. This story — my first focused on Brazil in a long time — came from an Enrique email.

Initially, I thought it was a straight-up, uncomplicated science story about how a Brazilian research team has put in dollar terms the amount of damage wrought in one enormous region of Brazil from the wide-scale destruction that illegal gold mining requires. One fact jumped out: through the team’s economic modeling, it concluded that the damage to nature, ecosystems and human health was twice as large as the value of the gold being mined — even as record prices for gold soar above $2,100 an ounce.

I pitched the story to my editor Glenn Scherer, who passed it to a Mongabay editor in Brazil, Alexandre de Santi. He gave the greenlight. Simple story? Not a chance. What I found from talking with the lead author, Pedro Gasparinetti, was that numbers from the study had a direct, practical use in what’s called a Mining Impact Calculator. This online tool is used by eco-investigators and prosecutors to bolster charges in court against not the small-scale mining operations, but rather the big corporate buyers of illegal gold. Gasparinetti connected me to an investigator and prosecutor for further insight into the value of the enhanced calculator. My own sources in Peru and the US — Enrique and Luis Fernandez — were essential in helping me understand the broader context of this important story.

This economic tool is no panacea. Illegal mining — responsible for widescale deforestation, biodiversity loss and human suffering across Amazonia — is not going away. But with Peru, Colombia, Ecuador as well as Brazil adopting the calculator in prosecutions of gold buyers, there is more than a glimmer of hope that uncorrupted courts will hold gold buyers accountable for billions in damages, thus choking off some the gold supply downstream. It’s starting to work. Let’s see how far it can spread and the impact it can have.

This is what illegal gold mining does to the Amazon in Brazil — once lush jungles filled with all manners of tropical life are reduced to a hellscape of desert, mercury-polluted ponds, poisoned species and dislocated people. I’ve seen this damage up close in Madre de Dios, Peru. It is heartbreaking — and unrelenting.
 Image by Fabio Nascimento

Mongabay: Government takedown of illegal gold mining in Peru shows promise, but at a cost

This drone shot of La Pampa in Madre de Dios shows the widespread environmental devastation from alluvial goal mining. A few years ago, that area was entirely dense jungle. In the middle of the photo are military outposts, Peru’s unprecedented attempt to reduce gold mining in one of the most notorious regions for such illegal extraction on earth. Photo by Jorge Caballero Espejo/CINCIA

Because of widespread media attention over the past five years or more — who can resist a story that combines gold, organized crime, prostitution and environmental devastation of a pristine rain forest? — Madre de Dios in the southern Peruvian Amazon has become known worldwide as a kind of hell on earth.

But as my story for Mongbay explains, a lot can happen in a year. La Pampa, the worst but by no means only large-scale illegal mining operation, was raided and largely shut down by the national government in February 2019. And the previous month, Madre de Dios — a region about the size of South Carolina known as the most biodiverse place on earth — elected a governor who wasn’t a miner. Instead, Luis Hidalgo Okimura is intent on reducing mining, formalizing and taxing miners who remain, and rescuing his home region from further environmental destruction.

I got to interview Hidalgo with three of my students in his government conference room not far from our hotel in Puerto Maldonado. After an hour and a half, I knew I had the makings of a good story. Specials thanks to my colleague Cesar Ascorra, national director of CINCIA, for arranging the interview. CINCIA is a Wake Forest-led science project that has developed proven strategies to repair deforested tropical areas and mitigate the public health threat of 185 tons of mercury dumped a year in Madre de Dios.

It was also a pleasure to work again with Mongabay editor Morgan Erikson-Davis. She not only accepted my story pitch, she enhanced the story by both downloading and analyzing satellite images that showed expanding deforestation outside La Pampa.

Riverside alluvial gold mining continues unhindered throughout Madre de Dios, especically along the Rio Inambari and Rio Malinowski. Photo by Jason Houston
This photo was taken by a member of Gov. Hidalgo’s staff after our 90-minute interview with him. My friend and translator Marianne Van Vlaardingen is on the left, then Wake journalism minor Juliana Marino, me, Hidalgo, Cesar Ascorra, and Wake journalism minors Kat Boulton and Renting Cai.

Mongabay: In Peru, a new president is faced with old conservation challenges

A giant otter in Cashu Lake at Cocha Cashu Biological Station in Manu National Park, Peru. Photo by Jason Houston

In early May 2018, I called Mongabay special project editor Erik Hoffner with a vague idea.  I would be spending six weeks in Peru between May 25 and July 5. Most of it would be in the Amazon, save for a week in Lima at the outset. I wanted to write a story that somehow captured the majesty of the Peruvian Amazon and what’s at stake as climate change and assaults such as mining, timbering and extraction put large swaths of the rainforest at risk. I’d be working with environmental photographer Jason Houston.

“I don’t exactly know what I’ll come up with, but I think we have a shot at something unique and interesting.” Erik was familiar with Jason’s extraordinary photography. He said, in essence, go for it.

We did. Here’s the result.

And an excerpt: Eavesdropping on nature from above is an unparalleled thrill. Even more thrilling is understanding the interconnectedness of the forest below, and everything in it; the mutual support and subtle language of various species that keep the forest thriving. Every living thing has a role to play, and it all adds up to provide ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and cloud production that the developed world depends on, whether we know it or not.

The story turns on a simple premise: A new Peruvian president took power in Lima in April 2018 after the fourth consecutive president had been felled by corruption and scandal. Each promised to protect the Amazon, seeing sweeping environmental laws passed. Yet with only sporadic enforcement in limited areas, Peru has some of Latin America’s highest rates of deforestation. Much is at stake for biodiversity and the health of the planet. That’s the story Jason and I sought to tell in both my words and his powerful photos. Special thanks to Mongabay editor Genevieve Belmaker for her careful editing and layout.

This gigantic mahogany is Cocha Cashu is a rich target for illegal timbering. That’s me in the background. Photo by Jason Houston

 

Mongabay: Peru’s new environmental policies: What are they and will they work?

The reality of illegal gold mining: total environmental devastation in the Peruvian Amazon. Photo by Rhett Butler of Mongabay.com

The reality of illegal gold mining: total environmental devastation in the Peruvian Amazon. Photo by Rhett Butler of Mongabay.com

In the waning days of President Ollanta Humala’s administration in July 2016, Peru’s National Congress approved a set of innovative climate change-related policies designed to reduce deforestation, protect watersheds and biodiversity, and provide the tools needed to leverage international investment through UN programs such as REDD+ and the Green Climate Fund.

But a new administration has taken over and lawlessness is often the rule in the Amazon basin. My story for Mongabay.com looks at the new policies and the challenges for implementation. First time with with Mongabay editor Morgan Erickson-Davis, who did a great job with my story.