Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
    • Front Matter Portal
    • Journal Club
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Home
Home
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
    • Front Matter Portal
    • Journal Club
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
Research Article

Elevated rates of gold mining in the Amazon revealed through high-resolution monitoring

Gregory P. Asner, William Llactayo, Raul Tupayachi, and Ernesto Ráez Luna
  1. aDepartment of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA 94305; and
  2. bDirección General de Ordenamiento Territorial, and
  3. cAsesor de la Alta Dirección, Ministerio del Ambiente, San Isidro, Lima 27, Peru

See allHide authors and affiliations

PNAS November 12, 2013 110 (46) 18454-18459; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1318271110
Gregory P. Asner
aDepartment of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA 94305; and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: gpa@stanford.edu
William Llactayo
bDirección General de Ordenamiento Territorial, and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Raul Tupayachi
aDepartment of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA 94305; and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Ernesto Ráez Luna
cAsesor de la Alta Dirección, Ministerio del Ambiente, San Isidro, Lima 27, Peru
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  1. Contributed by Gregory P. Asner, September 30, 2013 (sent for review September 14, 2013)

  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Significance

Commodity gold prices increased substantially following the 2008 global financial crisis. Gold demand has fueled a massive increase in mining activity, some of which is centered in the Amazon basin. Western Amazonian forests of Peru have become an epicenter for mostly illegal gold mining, but the clandestine nature of mining activities has made monitoring and reporting of forest losses extremely challenging. We combined high-resolution satellite and aircraft-based imaging with field surveys to address this issue in one of the highest biodiversity regions on Earth: Madre de Dios, Peru. We found the gold mining extent and rates are far higher than previously reported, with critically important implications for the ecology and environmental policy of this unique tropical rainforest region.

Abstract

Gold mining has rapidly increased in western Amazonia, but the rates and ecological impacts of mining remain poorly known and potentially underestimated. We combined field surveys, airborne mapping, and high-resolution satellite imaging to assess road- and river-based gold mining in the Madre de Dios region of the Peruvian Amazon from 1999 to 2012. In this period, the geographic extent of gold mining increased 400%. The average annual rate of forest loss as a result of gold mining tripled in 2008 following the global economic recession, closely associated with increased gold prices. Small clandestine operations now comprise more than half of all gold mining activities throughout the region. These rates of gold mining are far higher than previous estimates that were based on traditional satellite mapping techniques. Our results prove that gold mining is growing more rapidly than previously thought, and that high-resolution monitoring approaches are required to accurately quantify human impacts on tropical forests.

  • Carnegie Airborne Observatory
  • CLASlite
  • forest degradation
  • deforestation
  • Peru

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gpa{at}stanford.edu.
  • Author contributions: G.P.A., W.L., and R.T. designed research; G.P.A. and R.T. performed research; G.P.A. and W.L. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; G.P.A., R.T., and E.R.L. analyzed data; and G.P.A. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1318271110/-/DCSupplemental.

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

View Full Text
PreviousNext
Back to top
Article Alerts
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on PNAS.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Elevated rates of gold mining in the Amazon revealed through high-resolution monitoring
(Your Name) has sent you a message from PNAS
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the PNAS web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Gold mining in the Amazon
Gregory P. Asner, William Llactayo, Raul Tupayachi, Ernesto Ráez Luna
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2013, 110 (46) 18454-18459; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1318271110

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Request Permissions
Share
Gold mining in the Amazon
Gregory P. Asner, William Llactayo, Raul Tupayachi, Ernesto Ráez Luna
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2013, 110 (46) 18454-18459; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1318271110
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley

Article Classifications

  • Social Sciences
  • Sustainability Science
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 110 (46)
Table of Contents

Submit

Sign up for Article Alerts

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Methods
    • Acknowledgments
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

You May Also be Interested in

Water from a faucet fills a glass.
News Feature: How “forever chemicals” might impair the immune system
Researchers are exploring whether these ubiquitous fluorinated molecules might worsen infections or hamper vaccine effectiveness.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Dmitry Naumov.
Reflection of clouds in the still waters of Mono Lake in California.
Inner Workings: Making headway with the mysteries of life’s origins
Recent experiments and simulations are starting to answer some fundamental questions about how life came to be.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Radoslaw Lecyk.
Cave in coastal Kenya with tree growing in the middle.
Journal Club: Small, sharp blades mark shift from Middle to Later Stone Age in coastal Kenya
Archaeologists have long tried to define the transition between the two time periods.
Image credit: Ceri Shipton.
Illustration of groups of people chatting
Exploring the length of human conversations
Adam Mastroianni and Daniel Gilbert explore why conversations almost never end when people want them to.
Listen
Past PodcastsSubscribe
Panda bear hanging in a tree
How horse manure helps giant pandas tolerate cold
A study finds that giant pandas roll in horse manure to increase their cold tolerance.
Image credit: Fuwen Wei.

Similar Articles

Site Logo
Powered by HighWire
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS Feeds
  • Email Alerts

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Special Feature Articles – Most Recent
  • List of Issues

PNAS Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Chemistry
  • Classics
  • Front Matter
  • Physics
  • Sustainability Science
  • Teaching Resources

Information

  • Authors
  • Editorial Board
  • Reviewers
  • Subscribers
  • Librarians
  • Press
  • Cozzarelli Prize
  • Site Map
  • PNAS Updates
  • FAQs
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Rights & Permissions
  • About
  • Contact

Feedback    Privacy/Legal

Copyright © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. Online ISSN 1091-6490