Rising gold prices have made it profitable to extract lowgrade deposits lying beneath protected Amazon and other South American forests, says study of mining impacts.
A surge in the price of gold has led to increased deforestation of the Amazon and other South American forests, according to a new study of mining impacts.
With the rewards now higher than the risks, small scale garimpeiros – artisanal miners – are flocking into protected areas to extract the precious metal from low-grade seams under the tropical forest that were previously unprofitable, says the paper published on Wednesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Analysing satellite data, researchers from the University of Puerto Rico found that an area of 1,680 sq km was cleared between 2001 and 2013, during which time the price of gold rose more than fivefold.
