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A surge in unlawful mining has wiped out one hundred forty thousand hectares of tropical forest in the Amazon region of Peru, accelerating as armed foreign factions move into the region to profit from all-time high gold values, as per a recent study.

Roughly five hundred forty square miles of territory have been converted for extraction activities in the South American country since 1984, and the environmental destruction is growing at an alarming rate across the country, analysis found.

This mining boom is also polluting its waterways. Unlawful extractors use dredges – machines that chew up and spit out river bottoms – depositing toxic mercury employed to separate gold from sediment in their path.

Detailed satellite photographs enabled researchers to identify dredges together with forest loss for the initial instance, showing that the ecological disaster once confined to the southern part of the country was creeping north.

“We used to only see it in the Madre de Dios region 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 week on international markets as global anxiety rose about financial fragility. Indigenous groups have raised concerns that as the value climbs, militant factions were more frequently tearing down their forests and poisoning their rivers in pursuit of the valuable mineral.

Satellite photos show that previously lush forest areas are being converted into lifeless moonscapes of barren soil pocked with standing water of discolored water.

“This small section is just a minor example,” a researcher noted, pointing to a limited area of the vast red patchwork of deforestation documented in the study. “Imagine this expanded to 140,000 hectares.”

Mercury contamination build up in aquatic life and are transferred to the people who consume them, causing neurological and developmental problems such as birth defects and developmental delays.

A recent investigation of riverside communities in Peru’s northernmost region of the Loreto region found the median level of mercury was almost quadruple the World Health Organization’s recommended limit.

Research found that 225 rivers and streams have been impacted, with nearly a thousand dredging machines spotted in Loreto since 2017 – including 275 in the current year on the Nanay River, a tributary of the Amazon River that is the lifeblood of natural habitats and many native populations.

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

Residents began preventing extractors from advancing up the River Tigre in the region 40 days ago, leading to gunfights with militant groups. “We are forced to defend ourselves but we are unsupported. Government authorities is nowhere to be seen,” he stated with anger.

Extraction activities remains concentrated in the Madre de Dios region in the south of the country but new hotspots are developing farther north in Loreto, Amazonas, Huánuco, Pasco and Ucayali.

They are small but once extraction begins it could expand quickly, an expert noted, stating that the study was a glimpse into what was occurring across the rest of the Amazon.

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

Research showed more dredges being detected on Peru’s jungle frontiers with Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia.

With gold prices surpassing $4,000 an ounce, international armed factions are more frequently entering into Peruvian territory into unregulated forest areas where local authorities are taking minimal action to halt their activities, according to a criminologist.

Illegal organizations, including groups from neighboring countries, are more involved across the border.

“International crime networks trafficking cocaine and concealing illicit gains through illegal gold mining – amid record values providing hefty returns – are combined with a government that has failed to act decisively against organised crime,” the expert stated.

A political coalition of Latin American nations told Peru to get serious about unlawful extraction or it could face economic sanctions.

But a researcher commented: “Gold is just so profitable right now. I don’t see any signs of prices going down, so it’s likely going to deteriorate before it improves.”