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A surge in unlawful mining has led to the destruction of 140,000 hectares of tropical forest in the Peruvian Amazon, intensifying as armed foreign factions enter the area to profit from all-time high gold values, according to a report.

Roughly five hundred forty square miles of territory have been cleared for mining in the Peruvian nation since the mid-1980s, and the environmental destruction is spreading rapidly throughout Peru, investigations found.

This mining boom is also polluting its rivers and streams. Illegal miners use dredges – equipment that chew up and spit out river bottoms – depositing harmful mercury used to extract gold from soil in their wake.

Detailed satellite photographs allowed analysts to identify dredges together with forest loss for the first time, revealing that the ecological disaster previously limited to the south of the country was creeping north.

“We used to only see it in the Madre de Dios region but now we’re seeing it across numerous areas,” stated an official from the monitoring project.

The price of gold topped $4,000 for the first time this week on global exchanges as worldwide concerns rose about economic instability. Native communities have raised concerns that as the value climbs, militant factions were more frequently tearing down their woodlands and poisoning their water sources in search for the valuable mineral.

Satellite photos show that once dense swathes of green jungle are being transformed into lifeless moonscapes of barren soil pocked with standing water of discolored water.

“This small section is just a minor example,” a researcher noted, indicating a limited area of the extensive pattern of deforestation documented in the study. “Consider this expanded to 140,000 hectares.”

Mercury contamination build up in fish and are transferred to the populations who consume them, leading to neurological and developmental problems such as birth defects and learning difficulties.

A recent study of communities along riverbanks in Peru’s far north of Loreto found the median level of mercury was almost quadruple the safe threshold set by global health authorities.

Analysis found that hundreds of waterways have been affected, with nearly a thousand dredging machines observed in Loreto since recent years – among them two hundred seventy-five this year alone on the Nanay River, a tributary of the Amazon River that is the vital source of natural habitats and many native populations.

“Our waterways are being contaminated – it’s the drinking water that we drink,” said a representative of multiple local communities in the area.

Local communities began blocking miners from moving along the River Tigre in Loreto 40 days ago, leading to armed clashes with militant groups. “We have no choice but to fight back but we are alone. The state is absent,” he expressed frustrated.

Mining is mostly located in the southern area of Madre de Dios in the south of the country but emerging zones are developing farther north in multiple provinces.

These areas are limited but once mining is established it could grow rapidly, an expert said, adding that the report was a insight into what was occurring across the broader Amazon region.

“It marks the initial occasion we’ve been able to examine so closely at a country but I think in neighboring countries we are going to see similar patterns,” he commented.

Findings showed additional mining equipment being detected on Peru’s jungle frontiers with adjacent nations.

As gold values exceed four thousand dollars per ounce, foreign, armed groups are more frequently entering across the border into Peru’s lawless jungles where government officials are taking minimal action to halt their activities, according to a criminologist.

Illegal organizations, such as factions from Colombia and Brazil, are more involved across the border.

“International crime networks trafficking cocaine and concealing illicit gains through unlawful extraction – amid record values yielding high profits – are alongside a administration that has failed to act decisively against organised crime,” the analyst stated.

A political coalition of Latin American nations instructed Peru to get serious about unlawful extraction or it could face economic sanctions.

But a researcher said: “The returns from gold are immense at present. I don’t see any signs of prices going down, so it’s probably going to get worse before it improves.”