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A surge in unlawful mining has wiped out one hundred forty thousand hectares of tropical forest in the Peruvian Amazon, intensifying as armed foreign factions move into the area to capitalize on record gold prices, according to a report.

About 540 square miles of territory have been cleared for mining in the South American country since the mid-1980s, and the environmental destruction is spreading rapidly throughout Peru, analysis revealed.

This mining boom is also poisoning its waterways. Unlawful extractors use dredges – equipment that chew up and spit out river bottoms – depositing toxic mercury used to extract gold from soil in their wake.

Detailed satellite photographs enabled researchers to identify dredges alongside deforestation for the first time, showing that the environmental crisis previously limited to the south of the country was spreading northward.

“We used to only see it in the Madre de Dios region but now we’re seeing it across numerous areas,” stated an official from the monitoring project.

The price of gold topped $4,000 for the first time this week on global exchanges as worldwide concerns rose about financial fragility. Indigenous groups have raised concerns that as the price soars, armed groups were more frequently destroying their woodlands and contaminating their water sources in pursuit of the valuable mineral.

Aerial images show that once dense swathes of green jungle are being converted into lifeless moonscapes of grey earth marked by stagnant pools of green water.

“This little square is just a tiny sample,” an expert remarked, indicating a limited area of the extensive pattern of deforestation documented in the study. “Imagine this expanded to one hundred forty thousand hectares.”

Mercury contamination build up in aquatic life and are transferred to the populations who eat them, leading to neurological and developmental problems such as birth defects and developmental delays.

A recent investigation of communities along riverbanks in Peru’s northernmost region of the Loreto region found the average concentration of mercury was nearly four times the World Health Organization’s recommended limit.

Analysis found that 225 rivers and streams have been affected, with nearly a thousand dredging machines spotted in Loreto since 2017 – among them 275 this year alone on the Nanay waterway, a branch of the Amazon River that is the vital source of ecosystems and many native populations.

“Our waterways are being contaminated – it’s the water that we consume,” said a representative of several riverside communities in the area.

Residents began preventing extractors from moving along the Tigre River in the region recently, leading to armed clashes with armed intruders. “We are forced to defend ourselves but we are alone. The state is absent,” he stated with anger.

Mining is mostly located in the southern area of Madre de Dios in the south of the country but new hotspots are appearing farther north in multiple provinces.

These areas are limited but once extraction begins it could expand quickly, a researcher said, stating that the report was a insight into what was occurring across the rest of the Amazon.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to look in this detail at a country but I think in neighboring countries we are going to see similar patterns,” he added.

Research showed more dredges being detected on Peru’s jungle frontiers with adjacent nations.

With gold prices surpassing $4,000 an ounce, international armed factions are increasingly venturing into Peruvian territory into Peru’s lawless jungles where local authorities are doing little to halt their activities, according to an expert on crime.

Criminal networks, including factions from Colombia and Brazil, are increasingly active across the border.

“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 analyst remarked.

An intergovernmental group of Latin American nations told Peru to get serious about illegal mining or it could face economic sanctions.

But a researcher commented: “Gold is just so profitable right now. I don’t see any signs of a decline in value, so it’s probably going to get worse before it improves.”