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An illegal gold rush has resulted in the clearing of 140,000 hectares of tropical forest in the Peruvian Amazon, accelerating as armed foreign factions enter the region to capitalize on all-time high gold values, according to a report.

Roughly 540 square miles of land have been converted for extraction activities in the South American country since 1984, and the environmental destruction is growing at an alarming rate across the country, research revealed.

The gold rush is also poisoning its waterways. Unlawful extractors use dredges – machines that disrupt and displace riverbeds – depositing harmful mercury employed to separate gold from soil in their wake.

Detailed satellite photographs allowed researchers to detect dredges together with forest loss for the first time, showing that the environmental crisis once confined to the south of the country was spreading north.

“Initially, it was only observed in Madre de Dios but now we’re seeing it across numerous areas,” stated a director from the monitoring project.

Gold values surpassed four thousand dollars for the first time this week on international markets as worldwide concerns rose about economic instability. Indigenous groups have raised concerns that as the value climbs, militant factions were increasingly tearing down their forests and contaminating their rivers in pursuit of the valuable mineral.

Satellite photos show that once dense swathes of green jungle are being converted into barren landscapes of grey earth marked by stagnant pools of discolored water.

“This little square is just a tiny sample,” an expert noted, indicating a limited area of the extensive pattern of forest clearance mapped in the report. “Consider this multiplied to one hundred forty thousand hectares.”

The mercury residues accumulate in aquatic life and pass to the people who consume them, causing neurological and developmental problems such as birth defects and developmental delays.

A recent study of communities along riverbanks in Peru’s far north of the Loreto region found the average concentration of mercury was almost quadruple the World Health Organization’s recommended limit.

Research found that hundreds of waterways have been affected, with nearly a thousand dredging machines observed in the region since 2017 – including 275 this year alone on the Nanay waterway, a branch of the Amazon River that is the lifeblood of natural habitats and many native populations.

“They are poisoning our rivers – it’s the water that we consume,” said a spokesperson of several riverside communities in the area.

Residents began blocking miners from moving along the Tigre River in Loreto recently, leading to gunfights with militant groups. “We have no choice but to fight back but we are alone. Government authorities is absent,” he stated with anger.

Mining is mostly located in the Madre de Dios region in southern Peru but new hotspots are developing farther north in multiple provinces.

They are small but once mining is established it could grow rapidly, an expert noted, stating that the report was a insight into what was happening across the rest of the Amazon.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to examine so closely at a country but I think in Brazil, Bolivia and Colombia we are going to see similar patterns,” he added.

Findings showed more dredges appearing on Peru’s jungle frontiers with adjacent nations.

As gold values exceed four thousand dollars per ounce, foreign, armed groups are increasingly venturing across the border into Peru’s lawless jungles where government officials are doing little to halt their activities, as stated by an expert on crime.

Criminal networks, such as groups from Colombia and Brazil, are more involved in the region.

“International crime networks trafficking cocaine and laundering profits through illegal gold mining – amid record values yielding high profits – are combined with a government that has failed to act decisively against criminal enterprises,” the expert remarked.

An intergovernmental group of South American countries told Peru to get serious about illegal mining or it could be subject to penalties.

But an expert commented: “Gold is just so profitable right now. I don’t see any signs of prices going down, so it’s likely going to get worse before it improves.”