- Gold mining in Madre de Dios, Peru, is destroying rare peatland swamps that serve as critical carbon sinks, a new study found.
- The study, published in Environmental Research Letters, used 35 years of NASA Landsat satellite data to track the spread of gold mining.
- It found that more than 550 hectares (1,360 acres) of peatland have been destroyed by mining over the last 35 years, with over half of it occurring in the last two years.
- At least 63 out of 219 peatland areas have been affected by mining, putting more than 10,000 hectares (about 25,000 acres) at immediate risk, with the possibility that as much as 14.5 million metric tons of carbon could be released into the atmosphere, the study said.
Hidden within the Amazon Rainforest are rare, carbon-rich ecosystems known as peatlands, a type of swamp forest that’s key to combatting climate change through its capacity to absorb and store carbon. But in the mining hotspots of Peru, these peatland swamps are rapidly disappearing, one study has found.
In Madre de Dios, in southeastern Peru, gold mining has destroyed more peatland in the last two years than during the previous 30 years combined, researchers found. The destruction not only threatens unique biodiversity in the area but could also lead to spikes in carbon emissions.
“Mining is spreading fast into these fragile areas because it has become easier to reach these remote mining spots, and there just isn’t enough law enforcement to protect the area,” study co-author John Ethan Householder said in a statement. “If we don’t slow down the destruction, the damage to the Amazon’s peatlands could be permanent, with serious environmental, social and economic impacts down the line.”
The study, published this month in the journal Environmental Research Letters, used 35 years of NASA Landsat satellite data to track the spread of gold mining. It found that more than 550 hectares (1,360 acres) of peatland have been destroyed by mining over the last 35 years, with more than half of it occurring in the last two years.
At least 63 out of 219 peatland areas have been affected by mining, putting more than 10,000 hectares (about 25,000 acres) at immediate risk, with the possibility that as much as 14.5 million metric tons of carbon could be released into the atmosphere, the study said. That’s similar to the annual emissions of millions of cars, the study press release said.
“The rapid proliferation of gold mining inside peatlands appears to be of such scope as to be an existential threat to the entire peatland complex,” the study said.
Peatland is still a relatively new phenomenon for researchers in the Amazon, with the first ones in Madre de Dios only being officially reported in studies around 2012. Before that, many researchers believed that only Indonesia had tropical forest peatlands. Other peatlands in the northern Peruvian Amazon were discovered in 2009.
When Householder was doing his initial research in the area around 2010, it took him six months to realize he was even standing on peatland, he said. It was too far outside of what scientists expected to find.
“It finally dawned on me that I was walking on a peatland,” he told Mongabay. “But based on all the experts’ opinions, it shouldn’t really have existed in the Amazon. And yet, there it was.”
Peatland normally forms because of permanent flooding that creates waterlogged conditions and slows down the decomposition of organic matter. But the Amazon has only temporary flooding followed by a dry season, making the conditions for peatland creation harder to achieve.
Only in rare conditions where the water remains for longer periods does the soil become waterlogged and deprived of oxygen, slowing microbial activity enough to form the peat.
These peatlands are some of the most carbon-dense ecosystems in the Amazon, capable of storing seven times as much carbon per hectare as nearby forest ecosystems, the study said. Keeping that carbon in the ground, instead of allowing it to enter the atmosphere, is vital in the fight to lower greenhouse gas emissions and keep the global temperature rise below 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, Householder said.
“This is carbon that’s been accumulated over probably about 6,000 to 10,000 years,” Householder said, “and in the matter of 20 years, they’re going to dig it all up.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government in Peru carried out a series of raids to clean up illegal gold mining, but was only temporarily successful. Illegal mining camps returned and today they’re even pushing into new parts of the forest.
Satellite imagery shows that most mining takes place close to rivers because the activity requires significant amounts of water for extracting the gold, clearing sediment and operating machinery. Most peatland is located far away from rivers, so mining has historically not encroached on those ecosystems.
Currently, mining on the peatlands only accounts for 9% of all mining activity in Madre de Dios. But according to the researchers, peatland mining could reach 25% of all mining activity by 2027 as miners move deeper into the forest looking for isolated spots with less competition.
“Distance has probably been the main protector of these peatlands,” Householder said. “And over time, that distance has been eroding as miners push further and further away from the river and into the floodplain.”
Banner image:The Chaidi community where around 45 Ayoreo live. Photo by Pánfilo Leguizamón
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Citations:
Daichendt, N., Janovec, J. P., Tobler, M. W., Wittmann, F., Latrubesse, E. M., Hastie, A., … Householder, J. E. (2025). Surge of peatland destruction by an advancing front of artisanal gold mining in Amazonia. Environmental Research Letters, 20(4), 044001. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/adb868
Lähteenoja, O., Ruokolainen, K., Schulman, L., & Oinonen, M. (2009). Amazonian peatlands: An ignored C sink and potential source. Global Change Biology, 15(9), 2311-2320. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.01920.x
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