Illegal gold mining in southeastern Peru has fueled the destruction of a massive swath of rainforest and the killing of dozens of environmental activists.
LA PAMPA, Peru – Deep in the Amazon rainforest, a half-dozen Peruvian military vehicles are rumbling along a dirt path that cuts through dense jungle.Roughly 90 minutes into the journey, the rows of trees come to a sudden end. The soldiers jump out of the vehicles as their leader, Gen. Paul Bianchi, surveys the landscape.The forest has given way to a barren wasteland. The lush canopy is gone. In its place are polluted ponds and vast stretches of parched sand.The only things rising from the ground here are strips of wood not much wider than baseball bats – the carcasses of dead trees.“This is an example of how unscrupulous people turn this beautiful paradise into a desert-like area,” the general says.
This section of the Peruvian Amazon, known as La Pampa, is now under the control of Bianchi’s soldiers.It’s a place that few outsiders have visited. A place where just a few years ago, even the local police dared not enter.NBC is the first news network to access the area with the special forces since the pandemic.To understand what happened here, you must go back almost 15 years when illegal miners arrived in droves, along with the mafias that direct and profit off them. What lured them to this remote jungle was the treasure that lies just beneath the soil: tiny flecks of pure gold.
As the mining operations expanded, so did the ecological devastation. The miners chopped down huge swaths of rainforest in what was once one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. The toxic chemical they use to separate gold from the sediment – mercury – wreaked havoc on the land. Acre by acre, pristine vegetation was replaced by clay-colored sand and pools of contaminated water that poisoned fish and permeated the soil.
In time the area also gave rise to an illicit shantytown replete with bars, brothels and trafficked young girls. More than 25,000 people were believed to be living here in 2019.In February of that year, the Peruvian authorities launched a massive effort to eradicate illegal mining in this part of southeastern Peru for good.More than 2,000 soldiers and 1,500 police officers moved in as part of Operation Mercury, blowing up mining equipment and using tear gas to drive out the miners and others living there.The mission was seen as a success, but the story of La Pampa is still being written.
By Lisa Cavazuti, Cynthia McFadden, Kevin Monahan, Yasmine Salam and Rich Schapiro
Photography by Florence Goupil for NBC News
Drone Video by William Angelucci
Paradise lost: Inside Peru's emergency zone
Illegal gold mining in southeastern Peru has fueled the destruction of a massive swath of rainforest and the killing of dozens of environmental activists.
Nbcnews.com