International Space Station (ISS) recently released a picture of the Amazon Rainforest posted by NASA’s Earth Observatory. The picture was taken by one of their astronauts and released to the public eye on December 24, 2021. The picture on the onset looks beautiful giving off the impression that gold is flowing the Amazon Rainforest.

In contrary, what appears to be gold is actually prospective gold pits dug up by independent miners in Madre de Dios of Eastern Peru. In a rare picture, the area is reflecting off sunlight and was entirely visible from space. 

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The image showcases the Inambari River and numerous pits surrounded by deforested areas of marshy soil.  In the Madre de Dios region, independent gold mining supports the livelihood of thousands of people. This unfortunately also makes it one of the largest undocumented mining industries. Unsurprisingly, mining also majorly contributes towards deforestation, as per NASA.

The mercury employed to extract gold causes excess pollution in the waterways added NASA. 

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In 2011, the Southern Interoceanic Highway connecting Brazil and Peru was inaugurated. This move was made to make them more accessible for tourism and trade. However, “deforestation may be the larger result of the highway,” elucidated NASA.

The Tambopata National Reserve of Madre de Dios is banned from mining and is protected. But other huge chunks of the region are prey to excessive independent mining. Large areas have turned into toxic wastelands due to this. 

Frequent fluctuations on the price of gold in recent years have completed transformed the landscape of the region for the worse. 

A study done by the group Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) in January 2019 revealed that 22,930 acres of land were destroyed due to deforestation caused by gold mining in the previous year. This translates to Peruvian Amazon rainforest land equivalent of more than 34,000 American football fields being destroyed due to gold mining in two years, as per MAAP’s analysis.