Deforestation due to gold mining is increasing in South America, particularly around biodiversity hotspots.
Gold mining has become more feasible in remote tropical forests owing to the drastic rise in demand and price for the metal over the past decade. To study its impact, Nora Alvarez-Berríos and Mitchell Aide at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras in San Juan analysed satellite images of tropical forests in South America from 2001 to 2013. They found that roughly 1,700 square kilometres of forest had been cleared (pictured) and only 250 km2 was regenerated in and around gold-mining sites.
Although forest loss from gold mining is small compared with that from agriculture, for instance, it is accelerating — unlike deforestation as a result of other land-use changes. Moreover, nearly one-third of the losses are occurring within 10 km of protected areas.
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Gold-rush threat to tropical forests. Nature 517, 415 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/517415d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/517415d
