The Shame of All Peru: How much gold comes from the environmental wasteland known as Madre De Dios, Peru?

Answer: In July 2011 the Madre De Dios region officially produced 2,089,908 grams, or 67,200 ounces of gold. At the July 2011 London Fix average price of U$1573/oz, that's worth U$105.7m.

 In the first seven months of 2011, 13,332,654 grams, or 428,703 ounces of gold.

July's production represents 14.91% of all the gold produced by Peru. 

And remember, the above figures are only the OFFICIAL Peru Mining Ministry numbers and that unofficial production is normally estimated to be the same again, so take those numbers and double them to get the real picture. Though this below is the real picture of Madre De Dios (from this excellent photoseries):

¡VIVA INVESTMENT GRADE!

Madre de Dios: Latest photos of the environmental disaster

Via the twitterfeed of wonderful Frank Bajak, the AP reporter who's been there and reported on the shame of all Peru, your author is given the headsup on the latest set of photos from the Madre de Dios region of Peru featured on the reliable eco-site Mongabay. Here's just one in the extensive collection there, make a point of clicking though to see them all.

Words fail me. I mean, disgusting is just scratching the surface. More photos here (and be warned, they don't get any prettier)

Madre de Dios Peru: An excellent report from AP

Go here and read the report filed by AP on Peru's Madre de Dios gold mining region (previously featured on many an occasion here at IKN). AP dude Frank Bajak has done a great job of work and there's so much to choose from in this report that it'd be unfiar to sample any of it here, so just click through and read the whole thing yourself.

Peru's Madre De Dios gold enviro disaster is now out of the limelight so not surprisingly....

...production is picking up again.

And what was that about this two-faced piece of crap government caring about the Amazon basin wasteland being created again? What it does care about is the $83m worth of gold that comes out of that hellhole in the month of March (that's just the officially declared production, so double it at the very least to get the real idea).

 Numbers from here

Madre de Dios: A new academic paper on the region's destruction

We've covered the ecological disaster area called Madre de Dios on many occasions here on the blog and it since we started the issue of the destruction of the Amazon rain forest due to the search for gold has started to get picked up by real media services that reach a wider audience. But I'm happy to say that the world of academia is also starting to care more, with a new paper out today headed by Jennifer Swenson of Duke University putting the spotlight on MDD and its enviro trainwreck that nobody in Peru with any power cares about (they just want the freakin' money).

Here's the link to the paper and here's the abstract to get you in the mood. We applaud Swenson and company for the good job done.

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.

continues here

There's been a decent media reaction to the Swenson & Co paper too, which you can also check out on this link.

Peruvian gold and mercury poisoning

An excellent article is yours to be read just by clicking this link and going over. Penned by Barbara Fraser, it's all about how high levels of mercury in the atmosphere in and around Peruvian gold shops selling wares from informal/illegal mining may be a very serious health hazard for the wider population. Here's how the note starts, make sure you click through for the rest and thanks due to the eversuperduper Jacqueline Fowks for the headsup. Great journalism.

Townspeople, gold shopkeepers highly exposed to mercury in Peru

Experts have long known Peru’s miners are exposed to extremely high levels of mercury. But now new research shows that the toxic threat has spread to towns in the Amazon and Andes Mountains where gold is sold. Inside Puerto Maldonado's gold shops, shopkeepers heat clumps of ore, releasing mercury vapors that waft into the shop, and then outside, into streets crowded with townspeople. Researchers detected mercury levels at a gold shop so extreme a monitor couldn’t measure them. Then, high in the Andes, they measured unsafe levels in the air outside the shops.

PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru -- On a busy, dusty street beside a huge open-air market, signs reading “oro” mark shops that trade in gold. The customers, mostly men in work clothes and rubber boots, have just arrived from the mining camps to sell their gold and wire money home.

Inside, shopkeepers heat the miners’ clumps of gold ore, releasing mercury vapors that waft into the shop, and then outside, into the streets crowded with townspeople.

Experts have long known Peru’s miners are exposed to extremely high levels of mercury. But now new research shows that the toxic threat has spread to towns in the Amazon and Andes Mountains where gold is sold.

In Puerto Maldonado, a jungle town in Madre de Dios, one of Latin America’s most productive gold mining areas, researcher Luis Fernández in 2009 detected mercury levels at a gold shop that were more than 20 times higher than an international worker safety standard. This February, his follow-up testing found mercury levels inside one shop that were so extreme his monitor couldn’t measure them.

Then, a week later, in a town high in the Andes, Fernández became truly alarmed when he measured mercury in the air outside the gold shops, and detected levels that exceeded the amounts considered safe.

“It seems clear that these workers are under extraordinary risk for acute mercury poisoning,” he said, adding that people outside the shops are highly exposed, too.

In the first study of its kind in Peru, Fernández and a team of researchers funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are measuring mercury pollution from gold shops in Puerto Maldonado, in the Amazonian lowlands, and La Rinconada, 15,000 feet above sea level in the Andes Mountains.

Their initial findings – coupled with new tests by Peru’s National Institute of Health that measured mercury in people’s urine – point to a public health risk in towns near informal mining camps, which have flourished with skyrocketing international gold prices.

CONTINUES HERE

UPDATE: IKN has the benefit of smart readers and one, who'll go by the name of 'Reader B' because he's not into fame and such, really knows his beans about all sorts of mining issues, including  mercury. Here's the mail he just sent in:

You know what is most upsetting to me about the mercury contamination from placer miners? It can be eliminated 98% by the use of a mercury retort, 500 year old technology. Any tinsmith/ mechanic/ plumber can make one for about $50, and it allows the miners to re-use the mercury again and again (so it would save them money) and save their health, the environment etc. See attached image, or Google your own.


Seriously, in 1556 Georgius Agricola wrote De Re Metallica, which instructs one in the art. One of the very earliest science text books.

I know a Yukon placer mining consultant who always takes one with him as a gift when he goes to visit placer mines in the third world. Biggest problem is the ultra-violence often found in illegal placer mining camps (see any episode of Deadwood). Often too scary to even approach these places.

Madre De Dios: The Peru gov't bullshit never stops

So today we had the lapdog Peruvian Environment Minister, Antonio Brack-Egg (crazy name, crazy guy) stating that he was looking to promote alternatives to mercury for gold extraction/refining in the enviro-wasteland Madre de Dios region. Apparently he's all concerned all of a sudden (because the disaster area is finally making headlines) and also ssay that part of his protfolio is to recover the 32,000 heactares lost to the goldrush so far. 

This is utter tripe as usual. Let's look at the latest official production figures out of MDD, according to the Mining Ministry and while we do, keep in mind that the unofficial production is estimated to match the official numbers. Here's the monthly production from MDD....

...and this chart (featured before) is the one that takes official MDD production as a percentage of Peru's total product.

So yep, it's got slightly better in the last two months since that jawdropping spike, but it's still way way above the historical average for the region and there's still scant progress being made by Peru to combat this filth. The reason for that is simple enough; The bunch of two-faced moneygrabbers running the country don't give a rat's ass. DYODD

Two from Peru's Madre De Dios golden cesspool

1) Hey, remember a couple of weeks back when Peru's government made world headlines by clamping donw on the illegal dredging for gold in the Madre De Dios (MDD)? How it blew up the ships that were dredging for gold-rich sands, throwing the mercury contaminated waters straight back and generally screwing up the entire ecosystem? And that bit about how it was planning on destroying 300 illegal dredging operations? Yeah well, this is Peru where money talks and governmental bullshit walks, so yesterday after getting rid of just 35 of these disgusting machines the whole operation was halted after a 5000 strong demo of locals that wants the dredging to continue was met full on by government armed forces on the new Transoceanic highway and the clashes left two dead and many injured.

2) Via Setty, an excellent report from the UK Daily Telegraph (a rarity in itself) about the life in gold rush MDD. This is must-read material but here's the same excerpt Setty used in his post. As he said, stomach-churning.

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.’

Hey folks, don't forget that 15% of all the gold produced in Peru comes out of MDD....and that's just the legal production that's registered with the Mining Ministry.

¡Viva Investment Grade Peru!

Peru again fakes caring about the Madre De Dios gold hellhole

Today Peru, via an executive decree, announced it was suspending all petitions for new mining licences in the Madre De Dios region of the Amazon basin that is currently being decimated by a boom in the worst sort of enironmentally poisonous gold mining possible (see previous coverage). The govt's Andina newswire begins this way (translated):

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.

It all sounds very eco-friendly, doesn't it? The gov't does its thing, stops new mining and cracks down on the parabolic growth in the disaster in motion, we all live happily ever after. Unfortunately it's all BS lip-service to appease those who are actually stupid enough to believe what these liars say. As you may recall, the problem isn't the legal miners there, it's the total lack of control the government has over the illegal artisanal mining. As this chart shows, since that "emergency decree" came into force back in February, production out of MDD has shot up and now accounts for 18.8% of the country's gold production, double (yes, double) the number in less than a year. 

And what had Peru done about the illegal mining? What kind of crackdown on the 300 people a day (seriously) that are moving into the area to exploit the gold and be exploited themselves? Nothing zip zero nada (surprise). It's typical Twobreakfasts Peru: Say one thing, do another, screw the environment into the ground, hope nobody notices and go for the cash. Viva Investment Grade.

An excellent report on the ecological disaster Madre de Dios

This brand new report by Maria Emília Coelho cannot be praised too highly. We get taken through the gold mining zone of Madre de Dios, hear from the people (they know what damage they're causing, they're there because there's no work otherwise, they arrive at the rate of 300 per day) and see the rape of the jungle that's ignored by Peru's abysmal government.

And the photoshow on the page is outstanding. Here's just one of the shots of one of the many areas  of Peru's Amazon jungle being laid waste right here right now; other photos are even more compelling.

Coelho notes that in 2008, 9.5% of Peru's gold came from this area. We noted this week that this number has skyrocketed since then and now accounts for 18.8% of Peru's gold production, basically double in two years. So once your stomach has stopped turning, go read Coelho's most excellent report.

Peru's gold production: ¡La Puta Madre De Dios!

Outrage is the only word left here. Peru's metal production numbers for October are out today and show the utter contempt this country has for its environment and the Amazon basin region of Madre de Dios (MDD). This chart shows monthly gold production from MDD:

This chart shows the percentage of the nation's gold production coming from the wasteland it's creating from the jungle:

So what we have is an area that is being decimated in the way you can see in these photos that is under the supposed control of a newly created environment ministry, which up to May 2010, produced around 10% of Peru's gold. Suddenly that's up to 18.8% of the total! Nobody cares about the destruction, just show us the freakin' money, right Twobreakfasts? Will anybody make this into an issue? Can anybody stop this most awful of situations from getting any worse?

¡VIVA INVESTMENT GRADE!

Incredible! Peru's despicable Madre de Dios gold production now accounts for 16% of country production

 It's getting worse and worse in the Amazon Basin of Peru.

We've been through this dirty little secret before, and how it's kept away from the news media by the lying scumbags running Peru, with numbers and photos of the ecological disaster they've created while pretending to care about the decimation in the Amazon Basin.

Well, September's gold production numbers out of Peru take this shame to new lows. Here's the amount of gold from Madre De Dios, with last month's massive increase clear to see. IT'S GONE UP 26.3% IN JUST ONE MONTH, FER CRYIN' OUT LOUD!

Here's the chart that tracks what percentage of Peru's gold comes form this most disgusting of mining areas. It's incredible....that ecological trainwreck now provides 16% of the country's gold! Vomitworthy.

Is it only little me that cares about this? When will a real, mainstream media reporter get round to picking up on this story and giving it the airtime it so urgently needs?

Re-post: Peru's dirty little mining secret is getting bigger and dirtier

This article, first published here on September 30th, is getting a re-airing due to popular demand. It seems that there are a few mining sector investors who care about these things after all, not just psycho-obsessives such as your humble scribe. 

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Peru's dirty little mining secret is getting bigger and dirtier

This, quite honestly, beggars belief. Yesterday's Peru metals production figures bear witness to the ongoing environmental disaster that is the Madre De Dios Amazon Basin region, the wholesale rape of one of the world's most ecologically sensitive regions and the utter tripe and two-faced lies spewed by President Alan Garcia, his lying toady of an Environment Minister Antonio Brack and the total disregard Peru has for anything except genuflexion at the altar of growth and short-term profit.

Here's the updated table, which shows....

...that the Madre De Dios (MDD) region produced 1,618,380 grams (52,038 ounces) of gold in August 2010, a new monthly production all-time record for the region. Production is up 12.7% YoY and at current spot prices that gold is worth some $68m or so....for one month.

Even more telling is this next chart, that shows the percentage of MDD gold to the total produced in Peru every month. Because of the drop in gold production in the big mines in the North of the country (as noted yesterday) Peru's mining industry and exports statistics are evermore dependent on the gold coming out of MDD. Last month the percentage of gold from MDD to the total shot up to a new all-time record of 13.02%, over a full percentage point higher than the previous record and a mile above the typical 10% range.

IKN now directs your attention once again to that April 2010 drop in production at MDD. This is because for just a couple of weeks, world attention (via a couple of reporters and articles) was focussed on this disaster area and the government pretended to clamp down on the illegal and immoral industry. It was the month Minister Brack pretended to wring his hands and do something about the problem, saying things like....

"This is not small or artisanal mining. This is large-scale mining camouflaged as small mining and these dredgers generate destruction in the ecosystems of rivers, impede the reproduction of fish and dump mercury and waste into the rivers."

....as he promised to clean up the MDD region and punish the wrongdoers. So as you see, Brack is fully aware of the problems and the deep damage that's being done to the ecosystems of MDD. But as the current production figures clearly state, he's done absolutely nothing to stop the disaster. On the contrary, it's now even worse...I mean, what do all-time record production figures say to you? Brack is a liar and a scoundrel of the highest order and should hang his head in shame.

As for South America's most unpopular president, the unspeakably bad Twobreakfasts said this to soothe the world and provide "oh yes we care" soundbites at the time:

"We want to stop informal mining from poisoning the rivers of our country, from destroying the environment, from enslaving young people and child labour. (This makes us) look like a backwards nation in the eyes of the world."

"What's happening in Madre De Dios is atrocious, the rivers are the colour of mercury, of arsenic. This is dramatic and this is not only registered in our country but it also reaches Brazil. We may at any moment be judged internationally because of allowing a chaotic activity."

"One day Brazil may organize a protest against us because everything that leaves Madre De Dios ends up in Brazil and finishes in the Amazon River in some way or another. How will be able to defend ourselves for having allowed such savage mining?"

"What we will do with Minister Brack is show that the State wears the pants and can decommission these dredgers to stop them working in the worst of these manners".

As is 100% clear, it was all talk and no action. The hypocrite has turned his back on the problem and just wants to keep counting the filthy lucre that it generates. And yes, I hope Brazil and the world sues you fat lard ass one of these days, you doublespeaking rat.

This is Peru 2010, ladies and gentlemen. Ruining the world for the sake of its desperation for growth. When the subject is "growth at all costs" there really is no better example than this scandalous industry in MDD and the equally scandalous government that allows it to continue.IKN leaves you with a few photos of what used to be Amazon basin jungle:

Peru's dirty little mining secret is getting bigger and dirtier

This, quite honestly, beggars belief. Yesterday's Peru metals production figures bear witness to the ongoing environmental disaster that is the Madre De Dios Amazon Basin region, the wholesale rape of one of the world's most ecologically sensitive regions and the utter tripe and two-faced lies spewed by President Alan Garcia, his lying toady of an Environment Minister Antonio Brack and the total disregard Peru has for anything except genuflexion at the altar of growth and short-term profit.

Here's the updated table, which shows....

...that the Madre De Dios (MDD) region produced 1,618,380 grams (52,038 ounces) of gold in August 2010, a new monthly production all-time record for the region. Production is up 12.7% YoY and at current spot prices that gold is worth some $68m or so....for one month.

Even more telling is this next chart, that shows the percentage of MDD gold to the total produced in Peru every month. Because of the drop in gold production in the big mines in the North of the country (as noted yesterday) Peru's mining industry and exports statistics are evermore dependent on the gold coming out of MDD. Last month the percentage of gold from MDD to the total shot up to a new all-time record of 13.02%, over a full percentage point higher than the previous record and a mile above the typical 10% range.

IKN now directs your attention once again to that April 2010 drop in production at MDD. This is because for just a couple of weeks, world attention (via a couple of reporters and articles) was focussed on this disaster area and the government pretended to clamp down on the illegal and immoral industry. It was the month Minister Brack pretended to wring his hands and do something about the problem, saying things like....

"This is not small or artisanal mining. This is large-scale mining camouflaged as small mining and these dredgers generate destruction in the ecosystems of rivers, impede the reproduction of fish and dump mercury and waste into the rivers."

....as he promised to clean up the MDD region and punish the wrongdoers. So as you see, Brack is fully aware of the problems and the deep damage that's being done to the ecosystems of MDD. But as the current production figures clearly state, he's done absolutely nothing to stop the disaster. On the contrary, it's now even worse...I mean, what do all-time record production figures say to you? Brack is a liar and a scoundrel of the highest order and should hang his head in shame.

As for South America's most unpopular president, the unspeakably bad Twobreakfasts said this to soothe the world and provide "oh yes we care" soundbites at the time:

"We want to stop informal mining from poisoning the rivers of our country, from destroying the environment, from enslaving young people and child labour. (This makes us) look like a backwards nation in the eyes of the world."

"What's happening in Madre De Dios is atrocious, the rivers are the colour of mercury, of arsenic. This is dramatic and this is not only registered in our country but it also reaches Brazil. We may at any moment be judged internationally because of allowing a chaotic activity."

"One day Brazil may organize a protest against us because everything that leaves Madre De Dios ends up in Brazil and finishes in the Amazon River in some way or another. How will be able to defend ourselves for having allowed such savage mining?"

"What we will do with Minister Brack is show that the State wears the pants and can decommission these dredgers to stop them working in the worst of these manners".

As is 100% clear, it was all talk and no action. The hypocrite has turned his back on the problem and just wants to keep counting the filthy lucre that it generates. And yes, I hope Brazil and the world sues you fat lard ass one of these days, you doublespeaking rat.

This is Peru 2010, ladies and gentlemen. Ruining the world for the sake of its desperation for growth. When the subject is "growth at all costs" there really is no better example than this scandalous industry in MDD and the equally scandalous government that allows it to continue.IKN leaves you with a few photos of what used to be Amazon basin jungle:

Peru is a third world country according to Alan García

Back in April this year, when the illegal mining that's destroying the Peruvian Amazon jungle managed to keep the world's attention for more than 15 minutes, President Twobreakfasts said that (we quote) "....the illegal activity (of Madre De Dios gold mining) makes us look like a backwards, third world country and leaves open the possibility to be condemned internationally for allowing this chaotic activity to take place." He also explained how..."his government would stop the existence of the informal mining that was poisoning rivers, destroying the environment and making slaves of the youths that were dragged into the sector by the large operators."

Since then, Madre de Dios gold production has gone straight back to where it was before the headlines got made.

click to enlarge

Not only that, but Peru's gold mining industry, seeing production drops in its formal mines like Alto Chicama relies even more heavily on this scandalous export to maintain its economy. Madre de Dios gold now accounts for nearly 11.5% of all gold produced in the country.

click to enlarge

Third world is as third world does, Mr. President, and another thing that Peru has in common with the other third world countries is the bullshit demagogue liar and shyster it has as Head of State. But who gives a damn when we can all shout ¡VIVA INVESTMENT GRADE! as one voice?

Peru's two-faced environmental policy

This was Amazon jungle; it's now a environmental nightmare thanks to the
blind eyes turned on informal and illegal mining by Peru's government

Hey, remember back in April when Peru's newspaper of record, El Comercio, started a big debate over the environmental wasteland being caused by informal gold miners in the Madre De Dios (MDD) region of southern Peru? Well if you don't here's a link to the April piece, here's a link to a whole photo gallery of images from the craphole being made in the middle of the Amazon rain forest that was published by El Comercio. From there you can get Googling and check out the reactions in Spanish and in English media if you care enough.

So for a while, April 2010 to be precise, this most awful of governments in Peru decided to care about MDD. Peru's Environmental Puppet Minister Antonio Brack said he was "extremely worried", calls for new controls were made, licences to operate would be revoked and tightened up and the world would get greener and cleaner, right?

Wrong. As soon as the world's eyes were bored of the subject the Peru government did precisely nothing else, giving the green light to "business as usual" at MDD. Here are the official monthly production figures for the MDD area, January 2009 to date, as supplied by the Ministry of Energy and Mining (MEM):

Yep for one puny month the government clamped down, but as soon as backs were turned, production went back to the same as it ever was. And to give you an idea of what this dirty, filthy gold represents here's a chart that shows the monthly percentage of MDD compared to Peru's total production.
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.

This is the way of the Banana Republic; pay lip service, pretend you care, then go for the money. Peru, the most wonderful of countries, dragged down by its abysmal leaders once again.

Madre de Dios, Peru: We're now allowed to worry, because......

...English language media now consider the story important.

The BBC (damned Eurocommies won't let a guy do a fair day's work, eh?) starts its report like this. Click thru for the rest

Peru's gold rush sparks fears of ecological disaster

The high price of gold has drawn thousands of miners to a region of south-east Peru, but deforestation and the high levels of mercury used in mining has led to fears of an imminent ecological disaster, as Dan Collyns reports.

It is only from the air that you can see the full extent of the destruction.

The forests seems almost endless until it is abruptly interrupted by the raw colours of sand and earth; rivers torn open and thousands of hectares denuded and pocked with dead, stagnant pools of water.

Alluvial gold mining in Peru's southern Amazon rainforest has spread, driven by the high price of gold, now more than $1,100 (£680) per ounce, or $36 a gram.

Close to 200 sq kms (77 sq miles) of jungle have been lost in the evocatively named Madre de Dios (Mother of God) region.

"To know what we are losing, this area of Peru - the western Amazon - is the world's enclave of biological diversity," says biologist Ernesto Raez, who heads the Environmental Sustainability Centre in Lima's Cayetano Heredia University.

CONTINUES HERE