title: Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon: global prices, deforestation, and mercury imports.
abstract: Many factors such as poverty, ineffective institutions and environmental regulations may prevent developing countries from managing how natural resources are extracted to meet a strong market demand. Extraction for some resources has reached such proportions that evidence is measurable from space. We present recent evidence of the global demand for a single commodity and the ecosystem destruction resulting from commodity extraction, recorded by satellites for one of the most biodiverse areas of the world. We find that since 2003, recent mining deforestation in Madre de Dios, Peru is increasing nonlinearly alongside a constant annual rate of increase in international gold price (∼18%/yr). We detect that the new pattern of mining deforestation (1915 ha/year, 2006-2009) is outpacing that of nearby settlement deforestation. We show that gold price is linked with exponential increases in Peruvian national mercury imports over time (R(2) = 0.93, p = 0.04, 2003-2009). Given the past rates of increase we predict that mercury imports may more than double for 2011 (∼500 t/year). Virtually all of Peru's mercury imports are used in artisanal gold mining. Much of the mining increase is unregulated/artisanal in nature, lacking environmental impact analysis or miner education. As a result, large quantities of mercury are being released into the atmosphere, sediments and waterways. Other developing countries endowed with gold deposits are likely experiencing similar environmental destruction in response to recent record high gold prices. The increasing availability of satellite imagery ought to evoke further studies linking economic variables with land use and cover changes on the ground.
authors.affiliation: Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America. jswenson@duke.edu
authors.forename: Jennifer J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Swenson
authors.forename: Catherine E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Carter
authors.forename: Jean-Christophe
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Domec
authors.forename: Cesar I
authors.initials: CI
authors.lastname: Delgado
mesh_terms: D003132:Commerce / Q000191:economics*; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D005843:Geography; D006046:Gold / Q000191:economics*; D038622:Internationality; D008628:Mercury / Q000191:economics*; D008906:Mining / Q000191:economics*; D010568:Peru; D017215:Satellite Communications; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D006046:Gold; D008628:Mercury