Devastation in the Amazon - Part 1

I want to take this opportunity to show how extracting activities can cause devastation in the Amazon of Perú. I do not attempt to condemn these activities but to highlight they can be sustainable when technical and management strategies are well used for developing them.

Fig 1: Authorized area for alluvial gold exploitation within a mining concession land. Laberinto district, Tambopata province, Madre De Dios Region. (Own source)

Irresponsible alluvial mining practices in the production of alluvial Gold:

Own source

In Peru exists a concern about Amazon devastation caused by small scale mining activity. It is known that labor on the earth mixing the land and water to get alluvial Gold plays against the normal sediments present in rivers water, causing changes in the aquatic ecosystem and devastation of land as the topsoil is destroyed. That is the core of the Amazon devastation when it comes to alluvial raw material extraction. Mercury is used for the final extraction step so it should not handled near rivers it is handled during the gold extraction process. However, traces of Mercury might be dragged throughout the natural water cycle contaminating the environment.
It is important to point out though that there are current policies for miners, who are turning into formal miners by respecting regulations and accomplishing environmental and technical requirements in mining. On the other side, it exists totally illegal miners groups exploiting the mineral in banned areas of the Amazon-like protected and natural areas of the Amazon and no organism can face it because of the high danger involved when trying to do it.
Apart from that, I wanted to show the difference between a normal river from the devastation caused by the mining activity. In the last photograph, I caught a grown river from the Manu region, while in another season it might be dry. It is quite important to take into account that in the jungle we find atypical behavior of the river's course, besides there are many-branched out rivers with different behavior depending on the season of the year. Sometimes sceneries like this are misunderstood with deforestation.

View from one of the several branched out rivers in Manu district and pronvince, Madre de Dios region. (Own source)

Normal river.   Own source

Devastation for alluvial mining started from all miners since the begining of this activity at the end of seventies when it did not existed a road from Cusco to Madre De Dios. It has been caused by people with low technical instruction and managerial skills to work sustainable and no sensible athorities or skilled enough to face the challenging role, added to the lack of real support from high levels authorities. This issue is due to the lack of education and values in population, but on top of that because an unfair and indiffenrent Country authorities.

Macaws. Photo taken on January 2015 near Choque Comunity at Huepetuhe district, Manu  Province, Madre De Dios Region (Own source).
 


Photo taken on November 2015 near Comunidad Punkiri Chico, Manu Province - Madre De Dios (Own source). We can see garbage, some glass pieces and other trash on the natural mining campament ground. But still nature shows itself strongly beautiful and lets us see its power with vibrant colors: The two tiny Butterflys.

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