Gold-mining in Peru: forests razed, millions lost, virgins auctioned

Reports of mining in the River Santiago basin raise concerns given the devastating social and environmental impacts elsewhere

Three people in a motorised canoe on the mighty River Santiago in Peru's northern Amazon some weeks ago saw something deeply alarming. It was one dredge and between 15 and 20 men mining for gold up one left-bank tributary.

Two of the people in the canoe were consultants for Lima-based NGO DAR, which has dubbed the River Santiago Peru's "last frontier" for illegal mining. "In the Amazon gold extraction is only known about in the Madre de Dios and Puno regions in the south of the country," Esteban Valle Riestra, one of DAR's consultants, told the Guardian. "The shift to the north, where in the Santiago basin it started within the last three years, is something new."