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An illegal gold rush has wiped out 140,000 hectares of rainforest in the Amazon region of Peru, intensifying as foreign, armed groups move into the area to profit from all-time high gold values, as per a recent study.

Roughly 540 square miles of land have been converted for extraction activities in the South American country since 1984, and the ecological damage is growing at an alarming rate across the country, research found.

This mining boom is also contaminating its rivers and streams. Illegal miners use dredges – machines that chew up and spit out riverbeds – depositing toxic mercury employed to separate gold from soil in their path.

Detailed satellite photographs enabled analysts to detect dredges alongside deforestation for the first time, revealing that the environmental crisis previously limited 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 across numerous areas,” stated an official involved in the research.

Gold values surpassed four thousand dollars for the first time this period on global exchanges as worldwide concerns increased about financial fragility. Indigenous groups have raised concerns that as the value climbs, armed groups were more frequently tearing down their forests and poisoning their rivers in pursuit of the precious metal.

Aerial images show that once dense swathes of green jungle are being transformed into barren landscapes of barren soil pocked with standing water of green water.

“This little square is just a tiny sample,” an expert noted, pointing to a limited area of the vast red patchwork of forest clearance documented in the study. “Imagine this expanded to one hundred forty thousand hectares.”

Mercury contamination accumulate in aquatic life and pass to the populations who consume them, causing health and cognitive issues such as congenital disorders and developmental delays.

An ongoing investigation of riverside communities 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 225 rivers and streams have been affected, with nearly a thousand dredging machines spotted in Loreto since 2017 – among them two hundred seventy-five this year alone on the Nanay River, a tributary of the Amazon River that is the lifeblood of natural habitats and many native populations.

“They are poisoning our rivers – it’s the water that we consume,” said a spokesperson of multiple local communities in the area.

Local communities began blocking miners from moving along the Tigre River in the region 40 days ago, leading to gunfights with militant groups. “We are forced to defend ourselves but we are alone. Government authorities is absent,” he stated frustrated.

Mining remains concentrated in the Madre de Dios region in southern Peru but new hotspots are developing farther north in Loreto, Amazonas, Huánuco, Pasco and Ucayali.

These areas are limited but once mining is established it could grow rapidly, an expert said, adding that the report was a insight into what was occurring 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 neighboring countries we are going to see exactly the same thing,” he added.

Findings showed more dredges being detected on Peru’s forest borders with adjacent nations.

With gold prices surpassing $4,000 an ounce, foreign, armed groups are increasingly venturing across the border into Peru’s lawless jungles where government officials are doing little to halt their activities, according to a criminologist.

Criminal networks, such as groups from Colombia and Brazil, are more involved in the region.

“International crime networks involved in drug trade and concealing illicit gains through unlawful extraction – now with peak prices yielding high profits – are alongside a administration that has failed to act decisively against criminal enterprises,” the expert stated.

An intergovernmental group of Latin American nations told Peru to get serious about illegal mining or it could face economic sanctions.

But an expert commented: “The returns from gold are immense right now. I don’t see any signs of prices going down, so it’s likely going to deteriorate before it gets better.”