Madre de Dios: On the banks of the Madre de Dios River, part of the illegal mining disaster that is slowly washing over the Peruvian, workers are working around the clock in search of gold.
This mega-diverse region in southeastern Peru has lost an average of 21,000 hectares (52,000 acres) of rainforest every year since 2017 – twice the size of Paris.
The tree in the foreground has deep hollows filled with brown water, where it seeps through the rubble for precious particles.
“People can no longer grow corn, bananas, cassava because the land is completely dead,” Jaime Vargas, a 47-year-old local Shipibo leader and reforestation activist, told AFP.
Although mining is prohibited in their territory, the indigenous population of about 180,000 inhabitants in the department of Madre de Dios along Peru’s border with Brazil and Bolivia have no choice but to live alongside gold prospectors.
Some even work for them.
According to the US Geological Survey, in recent years international gold prices have reached their peak in May, making Peru the tenth largest in the world and the second largest in Latin America. .
