And so it was that Landsat found the mining and pollution in Peru that no one had noticed before. With the price of gold skyrocketing (360 percent in 10 years from 2001 to 2011), unlicensed miners began pouring into Peru’s Madre de Dios. They cleared 12,500 acres from the forest between 2003–2009. Landsat images showed local deforestation increasing at a rate of 26 percent per year.
While the deforestation itself was not great enough to pose much of a threat to the forest, the mercury was. Miners use mercury to extract gold from rocks. It vaporizes during the process and becomes airborne, eventually poisoning water supplies.
Mercury was getting into the fish, and the people were eating the fish. They were also drinking the water. Tests of local residents showed that the closer they were to the mines, the more mercury in their bodies.
The stewards of the rainforest now have work to do. Landsat looked; the scientists saw. Lives will be saved.
No comments:
Post a Comment