Unlawful gold extraction operations are expanding across Peru's Amazon rainforest, moving beyond traditional mining zones into pristine Indigenous territories. The operations contaminate waterways with mercury and expose local communities to violence from criminal organizations.
BOGOTA, Colombia — Unlawful gold extraction is expanding across Peru’s Amazon rainforest, pushing into pristine areas and Indigenous lands as environmental experts sound alarms about a growing ecological and health crisis that may cause permanent harm.
This expansion represents a new chapter for one of the Amazon’s most damaging industries, with operations spreading beyond traditional hotspots into previously pristine regions, according to environmental advocates, scientists, and Indigenous community leaders who spoke with The Associated Press.
The growth is speeding up forest destruction, poisoning waterways with mercury, and bringing violence and criminal organizations to isolated communities, despite government claims of increased enforcement efforts.
Previously concentrated mainly in the southern Amazon area of Madre de Dios, these activities are now spreading northward into areas including Loreto and Ucayali.
Peru’s top official fighting unlawful mining, Rodolfo García Esquerre, confirmed this trend during a television appearance in early February.
“Unfortunately, we have illegal mining in all regions of Peru,” he stated on TVPERU news channel.
Unlawful miners clear forests using bulldozers, dig pits in floodplains, and use floating equipment that removes river sediment while searching for gold. This process creates pools of contaminated, mercury-filled water and damaged riverbanks, while mining camps and access routes penetrate deeper into untouched forest areas.
Peruvian environmental attorney César Ipenza explained that this expansion has quickened recently as gold values have soared. Gold has been selling for approximately $2,000 per ounce throughout 2026 — approaching record levels and roughly twice its value from ten years ago.
“Illegal mining has increased considerably,” Ipenza stated, highlighting new operations in Huanuco, Pasco, Loreto, and near the Ecuador border as elevated gold prices make remote area operations financially feasible.
Julia Urrunaga, who directs Peru programs for the Environmental Investigation Agency nonprofit, reported that field observations show unlawful mining appearing in new locations this year, especially along river networks.
In affected areas, conservation workers report environmental changes become apparent quickly after unlawful mining begins.
“It happens pretty fast,” explained Luis Fernández, a research professor and senior fellow at Wake Forest University’s Sabin Center for Environment and Sustainability. “You’ll see changes in weeks to months once the machinery comes in … sediment plumes in the rivers almost immediately.”
At Peru’s Panguana Biological Station in the central Amazon, a private conservation site protecting some of the region’s most diverse forests, the damage is already apparent in 2026. The facility has become a frontline location in the unlawful mining expansion, administrator Fernando Malatesta told the AP.
“Where there were once intact forests … the rivers are now murky,” he explained. “You used to see crystal-clear water, but not anymore.”
Heavy equipment and road construction have invaded previously untouched forests. “It was an unrecognizable place,” Malatesta described after witnessing a nearby area cleared by dozens of machines in recent months.
Unlawful miners typically arrive via waterways with dredging machinery or by land with excavators, quickly clearing terrain and modifying water systems.
At Panguana, Malatesta and his staff were compelled to abandon the station after intimidation intensified in 2025 and early 2026.
“They started threatening us … there were people with machetes,” he recalled, describing confrontations with miners and local residents.
Scientists connect such violence to increasing participation by organized criminal networks.
“Transnational criminal groups are becoming more significant every day,” stated Ipenza, the environmental attorney.
Urrunaga explained that unlawful gold extraction has become a major revenue source for criminal organizations.
“Sadly, it’s very connected. It’s a source of income for many of the organized crime activities happening in the country,” she noted, adding that the operations are also “deeply linked to the political forces in the country right now.”
In late 2023, Peru’s administration established a high-level multi-agency commission to fight unlawful mining and supervise efforts to legitimize small-scale miners.
Government representatives report ongoing enforcement activities. Recent operations have led to confiscation and destruction of equipment valued at more than 60 million soles ($16 million) used in unlawful mining operations.
However, environmental advocates argue that ground-level enforcement remains insufficient.
The Peruvian government did not respond immediately to requests for comment. Rodolfo García Esquerre, Peru’s top official fighting unlawful mining who was appointed in 2024, declined to provide comment.
Indigenous community leaders report the expansion is impacting communities throughout the Amazon.
“This is already being heard in other parts of the Amazon. It is spreading through Loreto and Ucayali,” explained Julio Cusurichi, an Indigenous leader from Madre de Dios. He described how external miners arrive rapidly, clearing forests and contaminating rivers.
“There is fear,” Cusurichi stated, noting that more than 30 Indigenous leaders have been murdered in recent years while defending their territories.
At Panguana, Malatesta reported that Indigenous communities in some regions have started participating in mining due to financial necessity, while others attempt to resist.
“They are supporting illegal mining … they are selling their land thinking they are making the deal of the year,” he explained, cautioning that mining revenue “doesn’t last forever.”
Urrunaga emphasized that environmental destruction is directly connected to serious health dangers for communities.
“The devastation generated by gold mining is terrible in terms of the environment and through the environment also for human health,” she stated, explaining how mercury used for gold extraction contaminates rivers and the food and water consumed by Indigenous communities where fish is a primary food source.
“Mercury becomes the delivery system for poison,” Fernández explained, describing how it accumulates through food chains and impacts children’s brain development.
Claudia Vega, a scientist and mercury program coordinator at the Amazon Center for Scientific Innovation, CINCIA, warned that mining expansion into fish-dependent Amazonian communities could have devastating effects.
“Amazonian communities are already vulnerable … they eat fish every day,” she noted. “If you put mining in that type of place … you are adding more risk.”
She cautioned contamination could reach levels comparable to Japan’s Minamata disaster, where mercury poisoning caused widespread neurological harm.
“We can have deformities, loss of vision, loss of hearing,” she warned.
Scientists caution that mining expansion could have permanent consequences.
“We’re going to see a conversion of river corridors, flood plains and forests,” Fernández predicted.
Urrunaga argued that international gold purchasers “need to be accountable for the destruction that their consumption is generating in terms of the environment, but most importantly in terms of human lives.”
As gold values climb and global demand persists, scientists warn that continued expansion could push Amazon regions closer to an ecological breaking point, with vast rainforest areas transforming into damaged savanna-like environments.
“Every tree that falls, every river that is contaminated and every animal that disappears remind us that we are losing an irreplaceable treasure,” Malatesta concluded.