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Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon: global prices, deforestation, and mercury imports.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Swenson, JJ; Carter, CE; Domec, J-C; Delgado, CI
Published in: PloS one
April 2011

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.

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Published In

PloS one

DOI

EISSN

1932-6203

ISSN

1932-6203

Publication Date

April 2011

Volume

6

Issue

4

Start / End Page

e18875

Related Subject Headings

  • Time Factors
  • Satellite Communications
  • Peru
  • Mining
  • Mercury
  • Internationality
  • Gold
  • Geography
  • General Science & Technology
  • Conservation of Natural Resources
 

Citation

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Swenson, J. J., Carter, C. E., Domec, J.-C., & Delgado, C. I. (2011). Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon: global prices, deforestation, and mercury imports. PloS One, 6(4), e18875. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0018875
Swenson, Jennifer J., Catherine E. Carter, Jean-Christophe Domec, and Cesar I. Delgado. “Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon: global prices, deforestation, and mercury imports.PloS One 6, no. 4 (April 2011): e18875. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0018875.
Swenson JJ, Carter CE, Domec J-C, Delgado CI. Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon: global prices, deforestation, and mercury imports. PloS one. 2011 Apr;6(4):e18875.
Swenson, Jennifer J., et al. “Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon: global prices, deforestation, and mercury imports.PloS One, vol. 6, no. 4, Apr. 2011, p. e18875. Epmc, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018875.
Swenson JJ, Carter CE, Domec J-C, Delgado CI. Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon: global prices, deforestation, and mercury imports. PloS one. 2011 Apr;6(4):e18875.

Published In

PloS one

DOI

EISSN

1932-6203

ISSN

1932-6203

Publication Date

April 2011

Volume

6

Issue

4

Start / End Page

e18875

Related Subject Headings

  • Time Factors
  • Satellite Communications
  • Peru
  • Mining
  • Mercury
  • Internationality
  • Gold
  • Geography
  • General Science & Technology
  • Conservation of Natural Resources