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 (R2 = 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.
She was speaking from a refuge, the only one of its type in the area; only 72 girls have made it here since October 2008. It is a simple wooden building on a side street in the chaotic town of Mazuko, the main entry point into the Madre de Dios region, a couple of blocks away from the highway. It was late in the evening and Teresa was waiting impatiently for her parents to arrive from Lima to pick her up.
‘I was lost, I didn’t know where I was,’ she continued. ‘At night everything is dark, there are no lampposts or anything. The policeman told me that it was a miracle that I had escaped because no one can usually; they rape you and throw you in the jungle.’
Lima, December 8 (ANDINA): The Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) today published an exective decree that prolongs until 31 December 2014 the suspension of the admission of mining petitions in the gold exclusion zone established in the Madre de Dios department.
In March 2010 MEM suspended the admission of mining petitions in Madre de Dios until 31 December 2010.
The measure is to complement the Executive emergency decree published in February that declared the re-ordering of mining in Madre de Dios in the national interest and established that in the exclusion zones no mining or exploration activities will be permitted.
The objective of the exclusion zones is the conservation of first growth forest, of CONTINUES HERE.
This was Amazon jungle; it's now a environmental nightmare thanks to the 
It's 10% of Peru's gold production, basically. In 2009 alone, MDD gold added up to 5.68 million ounces officially (it's well-understood that more is produced and gets swallowed by the black market) and by using monthly spot prices for 2009 and comparing to 2009 GDP, it's also 0.42% of the country GDP. Generated by filth. |  |
Receive Your Complimentary White Paper NOW! Find out why operational risk management is a rising priority for monitoring disparate and disconnected efforts in safety, environmental compliance, and asset use to provide better enterprisewide control and management accountability. Making substantial efforts today will improve risk mitigation and create an enduring competitive advantage. Other Resources from: SAP
| |
"....unofficial word from Lima corridors of power is that the fairly new and so-far somewhat toothless environment ministry, led up by pragmatic ecologist Antonio Brack, is keen on making an example of this area in exchange for allowing mining development enviro green lights in other areas of the country. The concept is that Brack can point to the Cordillera del Condor area as a place (rather minor in the great mining scheme of things) where the government has taken action and protected jungle areas. Meanwhile the mining and energy ministry gets its way in other, larger project areas such as the oil projects of the Amazon basin. The trade-off makes sense, but if it comes to pass it would be a killer for DRI. How sad."Now have a look at what Environment Minister Antonio Brack Egg (great name) said in a radio interview on Friday (translated):
Environment Minister Antonio Brack called the decision by the Ministry of Energy and Mines to suspend the activities of Minera Afrodita (subsidiary of Dorato Resources (DRI.v)) in the province of Condorcanqui (Amazonas) "an answer to the request of the population of the Cordillera del Cóndor zone".
In conversation in CNE radio's program, 'Direct Dialogue', Brack Egg said that he had directly participated in the decision as it was a demand from the native communities of La Cenepa.
The Amazon jungle, as seen by Peruvian gold mining
"....my bladder stretched to the bursting point by two cups of coffee, I begged the captain to pull over for a pit stop. “I know just the spot coming up,” Pablo – who spoke perfect English – assured me. Two minutes later, we drew near to what first appeared to be a rocky beach on the left shore. As we pulled up to it, however, I noticed that the “beach” had been stripped bare of all vegetation as if it had been grazed by a Brontasaurus (who knows, maybe it had); just a few yards back from the waterline, three boxcar-sized pyramids of loose gravel and slag had been heaped there by some unseen giant hand. No bird stirred and no grasshopper whirred in the eerily still, almost sterile air of the place. What the Hell?
“Your first Madre de Dios gold mine, but certainly not your last,” announced Pablo when the motor had died. He indicated the riverside wasteland with a dismissive wave of his hand and weary ironic smile. “This one was just abandoned; I wish I could say the same for the others.”
Thinking that the ruined crescent of beach was “all” there was to the abandoned mine, I scrambled out of the boat and up one of the thirty-foot high slag heaps to find a private place to pee, as no tree or bush remained standing on the waterline. Cresting the top of the pile of loose stones, my eyes were speared by a shocking sight: stretching several hundred feet back into the jungle behind the slag heaps was two to three acres of sun-blasted, scorched-earth wasteland. In the middle of this ruined barren moonscape, covering perhaps a quarter-acre, was a slimy pool of toxic sludge that looked more like anti-freeze than water. Scattered about were stray bits of rusted-out machine parts and plastic jetsam. I added my own stream of human waste to the decoupage of destruction, and retreated back to the boat rocking gently in the waters of the Mother of God.
“This was just a small-time operation, what they call a ‘pirate mine’ because it had no permits to operate by the Peruvian government,” Pablo explained as we waited for the other passengers to finish their business. I asked him if the government had shut this mine down; Pablo laughed a “yeah, right” snort. “The government has neither the money nor the will to shut these mines down. The miners move in wherever they want to, dig until they think they can do better somewhere else, then move further into the jungle. These guys are set up somewhere else by now.”
As I had read but never paid much attention to, the other problem with these mines, legal or illegal – besides the total destruction of the fragile riparian corridor – is the fact that the miners leach the sand and pebbles through mercury, which binds to the gold dust, allowing them to harvest the tiny yellow flecks that have been luring fortune-seekers to Peru for centuries. Once the gold is collected, the mercury is washed on down the river to poison the fish – and anyone who eats the fish, be it bird, otter or human – downstream. Out of sight, out of mind, like so much else in the jungle. With the Peruvian government’s full knowledge and cooperation, hundreds of gallons of the toxic metal are simply washed away down the river for someone else to deal with.
As Pablo knew from experience all too close to home, it wasn’t just the folks downstream from the mines who suffered. “My brother went to work in one of these mines. When he got there, there was no fresh water for the workers to drink. His boss told him, ‘Drink from the creeks and river like everybody else.’ Pretty soon he was sick, then in the hospital for six weeks. He’s better now, but he says he will never work in the mines again.”
Everyone back in the boat, we headed off again. We hadn’t gone a mile before the real nightmarish visions began. They started out small enough, with the one- or two-man small-potato operations. While one guy would shovel wheelbarrows full of sand and gravel to fill the gravel-washing sluices (themselves supplied by a gas-powered water pumps from Hell), his buddy would wash the material through the mercury, ever alert for the tiny flakes that were the ultimate goal of all this carnage. Working together in teams, these small-time Planet Nibblers might be able to destroy a few acres of riverside in a year.
As we chugged on downstream, we came to the next level of Planet Eating – huge dredges set on barges in mid-stream that sucked the river bottom off its bed like a giant vacuum cleaner sucking up dust from a dirty floor, coughing the sand and rock up onto huge conveyor belts that were combed through by several workers. The tons of mercury-stained silt were dumped directly back into the heart of the river.
But the true, undisputed winner of the Planet-eating blue ribbon prize for inflicting, hands down, the most harm against the Mother of God weren’t the small-potato pirates or the Idaho-baker barges, but the legal “official” gold mines operated with the full encouragement and permits of the Peruvian government. These full-scale assaults against Mother Earth – clearly paid for and operated by some mega-buck multi-national mining corporation – didn’t screw around with piss-ant little wheelbarrows and water pumps. To truly lay waste to a planet, you need bulldozers, front-end loaders, and dump trucks the size of houses to move that rock around. You could almost smell the mercury hanging in the air.
Staring dumbfounded at this unbelievable in-your-face carnage stretching for miles along both banks of the Mother of God River (and this was just the little bit visible from the boat), I asked myself over and over again: what is humanity getting out of this rotten deal? Except for the few guys at the head of the pack – who have probably never even been to Peru – who is the “winner” in this lose-lose situation? The ladies back in the U.S. with their gold jewelry? Are those little flecks of yellow worth this destruction, this needless swathe of death? Could humanity survive without the “precious metal” being ripped from our precious planet? How much insult could one Mother of God take?
Of course, all these miners and their poverty-stricken families needed somewhere to call home. The small-time “pirates” tended to call home tiny little shacks that were really nothing more than overgrown tents made out of bright blue tarpaulins, clinging to the muddy riverbanks in little clearings hacked out between the waterline and the jungle. As we passed these forlorn little bivouacs, packs of curious children would stare out at us; I would stare back at them, wondering what kind of life these kids had to look forward to (clearly not a life in school, as it’s hard to run a school bus up and down a river). I asked Pablo his opinion, and he said, dismissively and unconvincingly: “These people have a lot more money than you think. They don’t have to live this way; they want to live this way.” Whatever you say, amigo…
The really high-rollers in the Peruvian gold-mining game got to move to the downright posh community of Rio Colorado, where they could upgrade from tarp-covered tent to rough plank and tin-roofed hovel. A six-block unbroken line of these depressing miners’ shacks stretched along the right riverbank; perched atop every other one of them like so many invading flying saucers were shiny new satellite dishes, so the miners could come home from a hard day of poisoning themselves with mercury to watch the governor of California blow up terrorists.
Pablo explained that the Colorado River, a major tributary of the Madre de Dios, was being invaded by the miners at an alarming rate. They were pushing deeper and deeper into the pristine million-acre wilderness of the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, dumping their silt and their mercury into the river, to wind up in the village. When I asked him why the natives the reserve was supposed to “protect” put up with this, he explained that most of the miners in the reserve were the natives! Whatever “noble savage” myth I was still suffering from at that point floated on down the Mother of God with the gallons of mercury dumped there by the Indians who for thousands of years have depended on the river for their food and water. I mean, be real: who would be crazy enough to live in some hut in the forest when you could live in a house in town with a satellite dish on the roof?
The biggest irony in all of this is that the gold miners are opposed to Hunt Oil’s petroleum explorations because they think, for some reason I can’t fathom, that the oil company will shut down their illegal gold mines. Of course, if that does happen, the gold miners can always go to work for Hunt Oil until the oil is gone, at which time they can go back to gold mining: money is money and Planet Eating is Planet Eating, what difference could it make?
The front page, above fold, of El Comercio today 
Main feature page of the El Comercio page today, Forests are converted into deserts due to the advance of informal mining that illegally extracts gold. Regular buying and selling of mercury is demanded by locals, who use it for the extraction of the precious metal.
An overflight of the jungle between Madre de Dios and Puno offers a panoramic portrait of the devastation; thousands of tonnes of earth removed and forests disappeared or buried beneath the tailings left by years of intense and illegal exploitation of gold in the Amazon. It is possible to make out improvised mining camps, heavy machinery turning over the red soil, flows of rivers cut off and enormous pools of water that hold an un-noticed poison that keeps on accumulating: mercury.
This element is as necessary in the exploitation of gold as kerosene is in the production of cocaine. Because of this, mining engineers and environmentalists argue that if the sale of mercury is regulated, in the same way as chemical supplies are to combat narcotrafficking, a large part of the problem of illegal mining and the destruction of the forests. But this doesn't happen; mercury is sold without any sort of control among the population that is found around the mining zones of Puno and Madre de Dios.
Supply and Demand
According to Customs information, in just the last four years the importation of mercury has nearly doubled, from 75,000kg imported in 2006 to 132,000kg last year. And so far this year, only up to September, there have been legal imports of 131,876kg of mercury. The Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) says that all these imports are basically used in artisanal mining, where levels of informality (no mining or land titles held or environmental impact studies approved) reach 90%.
For every gram of gold produced, two or three times as much mercury is needed. A recent study by Cáritas estimated that more than 50 tonnes of mercury is used in the Madre de Dios region per year- Despite the large scale of the mining exploitation, tax evasion due to the informality of the industry is enormous; this region receives only S/15,000 (U$5,200) in mining royalties from the state.
Up to March 2009, the Institute of Geology, Mining and Metallurgy (Ingemmet) and the MEM had authorized 1,592 mining concessions in Madre de Dios and only 19 have approved environmental impact studies, with another 1,089 in process. There are also 87 mining concessions that overlap the Peru State Nature Reserve of Tambopata. According the the MEM, the control of current illegal mining is the responsibility of the regional governments.
"The mining concessions have been authorized without taking into account other existing rights such as agricultural properties, forestry concessions, conservation concessions and protected areas" according to the diagnosis of the Ministry of the Environment. With this disorder of concessions and a lack of controls, mercury is feeding into waters, lands and even in fishes. In improvised stores located around the mining zones such as Huepetuhe or Inambari, where the taxman never appears, one kilo of mercury sells for between S/150 and S/180 (U$52 to U$63) in jars with the ticket names American Mercury or El Español.
No Clear Rules
National rules establish that all companies that use mercury must have mechanisms that allow for the recapture and re-use of mercury, but nothing more. There is no rule that regulates the adequate final disposal or the metal. Experts say that the ideal situation would be to take it to safe depositories overseas (Peru does not have any). Without clear rules, each year more and more tonnages of this dangerous element arrives to stay (or evaporate) in some part of the country.It is worth mentioning that 83% of mercury imported by Peruvian companies comes from the United States or Spain. Mercantil SA, Triveño Mercury Corporation, JH Minerals, Aldo Orlando Torres Rojas and M&M Trading S.R.L. are the main importers. The quantities that arrive are mainly destined for the mining industry, with lesser percentages for the production of chlorine and dental curation work.
But mercury is not the only element used in illegal mining in the Puno and Madre de Dios regions. Every day, front load diggers arrive that cost half a million dollars apiece along with lorries, trucks, excavators and drags. The economic investment is very large, nothing to do with small mining. The Ministry of the Environment estimates that 50 truckloads of fuel arrives to the zone every day, 175,000 gallons of diesel and gas is used and approximately 1,500 litres of oil is spilled by the machinery and boats. Who will put a stop to this situation?
Interview with Víctor Vargas Vargas, Director General of Mining, MEM
"Prohibiting sales could generate contraband""If the commercialization of mercury is regulated, wouldn't it reduce illegal mining?
Mercury is freely traded. There are formal companies that import and sell it in a legal manner. If it were prohibited, it may generate contraband in this material.
Imports have nearly doubled in the last four years.
This is connected with the rise in price of gold, which causes a greater demand for mercury in the marketplace. What's more, 98% of informal mining activity in the country is dedicated to gold mining and the basic ingredient is mercury. What we would like is that the technical requirements of the recovery of this element are complied with.
Therefore, mercury that arrives legally to the country finishes as being sold to illegal mining.
Indeed. Anybody can buy mercury, just like they can buy gold. There are no restrictions. What is needed is to formalize these people and teach them to correctly handle this resource. Large mining companies do not use mercury, but cyanide. Mercury is only used in artisanal mining. However, there are mines that during the exploitation process obtain mercury as a byproduct, for example in Yanacocha, that is then exported.Is there a regulation, as there is for cyanide, that locates the final destination that the mercury must have?
There is no rule about its control, but there is perhaps thought of creating one, without aggravating the already existing problems. Blocking its comemrcialization would stimulate a black market and a rise in the price of this material.
The 'Reserva Comunal Amarakaeri', Amazon basin PeruOn May 2, 2006 Hunt signed a License Contract for Block 76, covering 3.5 million acres located in the provinces of Manu and Tambopata along the Camisea gas trend. Hunt, along with Repsol (50 percent), is currently in the first 2.5-year period of the contract, which entails geology and geophysical studies, and environmental impact assessment, field study and seismic processing. The second period of the contract commences in the first quarter of 2009.
Not only is the nature reserve legally recognized by the government of Peru (an armslength of laws and regs right here) but it is also supported by international environment protection laws and bodies to protect the rights of indigenous peoples living there, the conservation of its environment and the preservation of its flora and fauna.
"...that the entry of Hunt Oil and Respol into the interior of the RCA to execute seismic projects is not accepted, a decision that will be respected by the Peruvian State, Hunt Oil and Repsol, who have been present witnesses to this decision"
...states the locals' determination to forcibly eject, if need be, the oil company and its staff. After the death and destruction we saw at Bagua this year that came about due to a confrontation very similar to the one we're now seeing over RCA, we now have a real live potential flashpoint emergency situation on our hands. Reports coming through from the region say that there is suddenly an influx of police officers in the local town of Salvacion and that the atmosphere between the two sides is getting ugly.
The Office of the Ombudsman in Panama (Defensoría del Pueblo) today published the findings of its investigation in LatAm's worst mining company, Petaquilla Minerals (PTQ.to), currently permanently laying waste to the environment of first growth rain forest around its operations under the stewardship of its CEO, convicted drug runner Richard Fifer.1) The Ombudsman states that Petaquilla Minerals has violated Panama's constitutional right of a healthy environment by proven acts of pollution, non-compliance with laws and abuses of rights (I mean hey...why mess with breaking a piffly law or two when you can go the whole hog and violate the country's constitution, right?).The ministries now have 30 days to get their acts together and move on this. It explains why the company says it's finally commissioning its mine but the stock has done nothing despite the BS pump PRs and ridiculous cheerleading from corrupted Panamanian websites that try to part expats from their retirement lump sums (and are seemingly unwilling to run today's news on Fifer's craphole...what a surprise, Don Wanker).
2) The Ombudsman recommends to the Ministry of Commerce (MICI) and the Ministry of the Environment (ANAM) that they take steps via some precise and existing laws to stop all activity at the mine immediately.
3) The Ombudsman recommends to the Ministry of Commerce (MICI) that it moves to rescind the contract of Petaquilla Minerals under the law of "Substantial Non-Compliance" that's part of the Pananamian statute.
The sooner this thing is shut down forever, the better it will be for the world. PTQ.to is a prime example of the kind of rancid operation that gives the whole world of mining a bad name and gets dirt thrown at the good as well as the bad. Meanwhile, the sycophantic Canadian mining scene just keeps it mouth tightly shut about the stock and the scumbags running the company; it's about time you learned how to weed out your own, boyz.
Felipe Camargo: Noriega's henchman and convicted human rights 
The company has been tight lipped about things, but according to this Spanish language report from way down Chubut Argentina way and dated the morning of Thursday, 21st May, the Environmental Impact Study submitted by AQI.to to the provincial government of Chubut has been rejected and they have a maximum of 60 days to come up with a better idea.VISITOR ANALYSIS | |
| Referrer | http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4WZPA_en___US258&q=Doe Run Peru |
| Search Engine Phrase | Doe Run Peru |
| Search Engine Name | www.google.com |
| Search Engine Host | |
| Host Name | XXXXXXXXXXXXX |
| IP Address | 67.XXX.XXX.XXX dremco |
| Country | United States |
| Region | Arizona |
| City | Chandler |
| ISP | Sun Lakes Cable |
| Returning Visits | 0 |
| Visit Length | 31 mins 22 secs |
| VISITOR SYSTEM SPECS | |
| Browser | IE 7.0 |
| Operating System | WinXP |
| Resolution | Unknown |
| Javascript | Enabled |
| Date | Time | Type | WebPage |
| 29th April 2009 | 17:32:08 | Page View | www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4WZPA_en___US258&q=Doe Run Peru www.incakolanews.blogspot.com/2009/03/doe-run-peru-truth-will-out.html |
| 29th April 2009 | 17:36:39 | Exit Link | https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=507788417054293017&postID=7735749254938621153&isPopup=true |
| 29th April 2009 | 17:44:42 | Page View | www.incakolanews.blogspot.com/2009/03/doe-run-peru-truth-will-out.html incakolanews.blogspot.com/search/label/ira%20rennert |
| 29th April 2009 | 17:58:00 | Page View | incakolanews.blogspot.com/search/label/ira%20rennert incakolanews.blogspot.com/2009/03/ira-rennert-doe-run-peru-leopards-and.html |
| 29th April 2009 | 18:03:21 | Page View | incakolanews.blogspot.com/search/label/ira%20rennert incakolanews.blogspot.com/2009/03/ira-rennert-doe-run-peru-leopards-and.html |
| 29th April 2009 | 18:03:26 | Page View | www.incakolanews.blogspot.com/2009/03/doe-run-peru-truth-will-out.html incakolanews.blogspot.com/search/label/ira%20rennert |
| 29th April 2009 | 18:03:30 | Page View | www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4WZPA_en___US258&q=Doe Run Peru www.incakolanews.blogspot.com/2009/03/doe-run-peru-truth-will-out.html |
Click to enlarge (it gets very big)
