The rainforests of South America face many threats. The deforestation occurring on the continent is among the highest in the world and results in losses of habitat, biodiversity and massive amounts of sequestered carbon. While the usual culprits such as farming, ranching and logging are well known, gold mining is fast extending its destructive reach into some of the world’s most untouched landscapes, according to research published this week in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
“Although the loss of forest due to mining is smaller in extent compared to deforestation caused by other land uses, such as agriculture or grazing areas, deforestation due to mining is occurring in some of the most biologically diverse regions in the tropics,” said Nora Álvarez-Berríos, a graduate student in environmental sciences at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras, in a press release. She was the lead author of the study.
Huepetuhe goldmine in southern Peru. Mercury, a neurotoxin, is often used to separate ore from substrate. Previous studies have shown high blood levels of mercury in fish and people downstream in the city of Puerto Maldonado. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
Álvarez-Berríos and her co-author, T. Mitchell Aide, found that between 2001 and 2013, about 1,680 square kilometers (650 square miles) of forest was destroyed in connection with gold mining on 1,600 individual mining sites across South America. The distribution of deforestation, however, was anything but even. The researchers found that more than 90 percent of the forest loss happened in four “hotspots,” including repositories for “some of the most remote and better-conserved old-growth forests in tropical South America,” write the authors in their paper.
What’s more, they connected the trend with the international economic downturn that occurred in 2008. As recessions sent in around the world, people increasingly turned to tangible investments like gold. That demand, combined with rising incomes in places like China and thus more money to spend on gold jewelry, drove the metal’s price per ounce skyward, from $250 in 2000 to more than $1,200 today. The price peaked at more than $1,800 an ounce in 2011.
Álvarez-Berríos and Aide split the time period roughly in half, looking at how the deforestation that occurred from 2001 to 2006 compared with that from 2007 to 2013. In the latter span, 1,303 square kilometers (500 square miles) lost tree cover due to mining. That’s more than 80 percent of the total deforestation that happened over the 13-year span, and a 245 percent increase of the clearing that happened before the global financial crisis.
To find the links between gold mining and deforestation, the scientists first compiled a database of known or potential mines from government and private company records, and by scanning Google Earth images. They then used satellite imagery to examine how the vegetation on and around these mining sites changed over time. Additionally, they also looked at whether the mining sites infringed upon protected areas such as parks and refuges.
The largest portion of deforestation – some 40 percent – occurred in the Guianan forest, found in the three Guianas – Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname – and Venezuela. Mining has been on the rise in this region since the 1990s, as it’s rich in iron, diamonds, and bauxite, as well as gold. The authors cite a statistic from the Guyana Forestry Commission that 68 percent of deforestation in Guyana between 2001 and 2010 was the result of mining. The study also revealed the frequent incursion of mining into “areas of high conservation priority” and that most mines in the Guianan forest are small or mid-sized.
Brazil has seen a spike in mining as the price of gold has risen, with 10 times the number of small-scale miners in 2010 as in 1990. More than 200,000 are estimated to be operating in the Brazilian Amazon, especially in the Tapajós–Xingú ecoregion forest. The authors point out that grazing in the same areas as the mines often compounds deforestation.
Mining in the Magdalena Valley-Urabá region of Colombia has been a noteworthy driver of deforestation, along with oil exploration, ranching and farming, according to the authors. Nearly all of the mining in Colombia is illegal, they write, and this specific region is home to guerrilla and militia groups, including the FARC and the ELN, that use mining to support their activities.
The fourth deforestation hotspot mentioned by the authors is in southwest Peru, in the Department of Madre de Dios. They cite previous research that found that mining was the greatest force for change in the landscape between 2008 and 2012, even though before that agriculture had caused the majority of deforestation. Álvarez-Berríos and Aide point out that the jump in the price of gold has meant that miners have the potential to make more than 12 times more than the average farm laborer in the region – up to $230 a day as a miner, compared to $15 to 18 a day to work on a farm.
Data from Global Forest Watch illustrates the deforestation occurring in the region. FORMA alerts show instances of likely forest loss in near-real time. Since 2006, the majority of alerts have occurred along waterways, suggesting deforestation may be happening alongside attempts to mine the alluvial gold found in rivers and streams.
Mining is rampant along the upper reaches of the Madre de Dios River in southern Peru. According to Global Forest Watch, there have been more than 3,000 FORMA alerts in the region shown since 2006, with more than 57,000 hectares of tree cover lost from 2001 through 2012. Click to enlarge.
The authors’ analysis of protected areas found that about a third of the deforestation they measured occurred within a 10-kilometer buffer zone of “strict” protected areas that typically don’t allow extractive uses within their borders. They did find that little deforestation occurred inside strict protected areas.
As the incentives to mine gold persist, the authors note that deforestation is not the only negative result. Mining increases sedimentation in rivers, bush meat hunting, and noise pollution, write the researchers. And the chemicals used in the process can affect populations far from the mining sites themselves: “Elevated mercury concentrations have been found in humans hundreds of kilometers away from gold mining centers,” they add.
In the paper, the scientists call for the need to tackle both the supply and demand sides of the issue. “To decrease the amount of deforestation that is occurring as a result of gold mining in the tropical forests, it is important that awareness is raised among gold consumers to understand the environmental and social impacts of buying gold jewelry or investing in gold,” said Álvarez-Berríos in the release.
She added, “It is important to also encourage more responsible ways of extracting gold by helping miners to extract in a more efficient way to reduce deeper encroachment into the forests.”
Citations:
Greenpeace, University of Maryland, World Resources Institute and Transparent World. 2014. Intact Forest Landscapes: update and degradation from 2000-2013. Accessed through Global Forest Watch on Jan. 14, 2015. www.globalforestwatch.org
Hammer, Dan, Robin Kraft, and David Wheeler. 2013. “FORMA Alerts.” World Resources Institute and Center for Global Development. Accessed through Global Forest Watch on Jan. 14, 2015.. www.globalforestwatch.org.
Hansen, M. C., P. V. Potapov, R. Moore, M. Hancher, S. A. Turubanova, A. Tyukavina, D. Thau, S. V. Stehman, S. J. Goetz, T. R. Loveland, A. Kommareddy, A. Egorov, L. Chini, C. O. Justice, and J. R. G. Townshend. 2013. “Hansen/UMD/Google/USGS/NASA Tree Cover Loss and Gain Area.” University of Maryland, Google, USGS, and NASA. Accessed through Global Forest Watch on Jan. 14, 2015. www.globalforestwatch.org.- Nora L Alvarez-Berríos and T Mitchell Aide (2015). Global demand for gold is another threat for tropical forests. Environ. Res. Lett. 10 014006. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/1/014006
Related articles
Half of Indonesia’s deforestation occurs outside concession areas
(01/06/2015) Roughly half of Indonesia’s natural forest loss occurs outside officially designated concession areas, concludes a new assessment that also finds higher deforestation rates in places with worse forest governance scores. The report, released last month by Forest Watch Indonesia, is based on analysis of satellite data spanning the archipelago. Unlike assessments by the Ministry of Forestry, the data includes areas outside the ‘forest estate’.
Edited Reality: What I Learned from Filming Eaten Alive 
(12/22/2014) On November 3, 2014, I woke up to check my flight status from Bangalore to New York. What I found when I opened my laptop was a mindboggling amount of emails, hate mail, death threats, and interview requests. The numbers were staggering. The night before, the Discovery Channel had aired the first trailers for the show they decided to call Eaten Alive.
10 years following tsunami, Aceh aims to create its own, new, and totally preventable disaster 
(12/11/2014) In the run-up to the tenth anniversary of the devastating 2004 tsunami, that claimed the lives of around 200,000 of Aceh’s people, there is much concern that Aceh seems now to be deliberately steering itself towards yet another, entirely avoidable disaster. One that will harm yet more people and cause even more long-term economic damage to the province.
Indigenous leader murdered before he could attend Climate Summit 
(12/08/2014) Days before José Isidro Tendetza Antún was supposed to travel to the UN Climate Summit in Lima to publicly file a complaint against a massive mining operation, he went missing. Now, the Guardian reports that the body of the Shuar indigenous leader has been found, bound and buried in an unmarked grave on the banks of the Zamora River.
Giant stone face unveiled in the Amazon rainforest (video) 
(12/04/2014) A new short film documents the journey of an indigenous tribe hiking deep into their territory in the Peruvian Amazon to encounter a mysterious stone countenance that was allegedly carved by ancient peoples. According to Handcrafted Films, which produced the documentary entitled The Reunion, this was the first time the Rostro Harakbut has been filmed.
Chinese logging company takes over Guyana’s forests 
(11/26/2014) Foreign companies investing in Guyana’s substantial forests are supposed to adhere to national laws and international agreements. But civil society leaders and activists inside and outside the South American country are crying foul, saying foreign corporations and government officials are paying lip service to the accords while quietly building a timber-harvesting empire in the country with few benefits for the average Guyanese.
Developing land without approval of local people ‘a human rights issue of grave concern,’ says new report 
(11/20/2014) Throughout the tropics, staggering amounts of land have been designated for natural resource extraction—as much as 40 percent of Peru, 30 percent of Indonesia and 35 percent of Liberia. However, much of this land is already in use; it is being inhabited by local communities and indigenous peoples. And while it is possible to live on and extract resources from the same land, when local communities are not consulted in this exchange, conflict may erupt.
A tale of 2 Perus: Climate Summit host, 57 murdered environmentalists 
(11/18/2014) On September 1st, indigenous activist, Edwin Chota, and three other indigenous leaders were gunned down and their bodies thrown into rivers. Chota, an internationally-known leader of the Asháninka in Peru, had warned several times that his life was on the line for his vocal stance against the destruction of his peoples’ forests, yet the Peruvian government did nothing to protect him—or others.
Mapping mistake leaves wildlife at risk 
(11/12/2014) Scientists have discovered a new, endangered plant species in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in an area that is supposed to be protected as a reserve. However, mapping errors effectively moved the reserve’s boundaries 50 kilometers to the west, opening up the region and its vulnerable wildlife to human disturbance.
Only place where rhinos, tigers, elephants, and orangutans coexist is under threat 
(11/12/2014) A forest that is the only place where rhinos, tigers, elephants, and orangutans coexist is under threat from planned infrastructure, mining, logging, and plantation projects, warns a new report from the Rainforest Action Network. The report looks at one of the last vestiges of wilderness on the island of Sumatra, which for the past three decades has been heavily ravaged by logging, fires, and conversion to industrial timber and oil palm plantations. This area, known as the Leuser Ecosystem, is today a battleground between business-as-usual interests seeking to mine its forests and a collection of conservationists, local communities, and a collection of companies seeking to steward its resources.
