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.
Type
Journal articleSubject
CommerceConservation of Natural Resources
Geography
Gold
Internationality
Mercury
Mining
Peru
Satellite Communications
Time Factors
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/9136Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1371/journal.pone.0018875Publication Info
Swenson, Jennifer J; Carter, Catherine E; Domec, Jean-Christophe; & Delgado, Cesar
I (2011). Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon: global prices, deforestation, and mercury imports.
PLoS One, 6(4). pp. e18875. 10.1371/journal.pone.0018875. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/9136.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Jean Christophe Domec
Visiting Professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment
Bordeaux Sciences Agro in FRANCE (primary appointment)Discovery of knowledge in Plant
water relations, ecosystem ecology and ecohydrology, with special focus on: - Long-distance
water transport under future climate; - Drought tolerance and avoidance; - Patterns
of changes in structural and functional traits within individual plants. My goal as
a researcher is to improve the fundamental science understanding of how plants and
terrestrial ecosystems respond to climate
Jennifer J. Swenson
Associate Professor of the Practice of Geospatial Analysis
Swenson's research tracks changes in terrestrial Earth's living surface at the landscape
to region scale with remote sensing and geospatial analysis. Her interest include:
how patterns and canopy structure are effected by drought, afforestation, and deforestation,
patterns and climate shifts of ecosystem biodiversity, and providing access to practitioners
to remotely sensed data and analysis. Prior to her 15 years in Duke's Nicholas School
of the Environment, she held positions in NGOs (NatureSe
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