Peru will invest around $60 million US dollars in a key area of the Amazon near Brazil and Bolivia where tropical forests were deforested by a gold rush that attracted thousands of illegal miners for more than a decade.
“The Minister of the Environment, Fabiola Muñoz, said in an interview with the local radio, Madre de Dios, that the government will invest that amount of money in the next two years in various sectors”, according to information published in Panorama.
Two thirds of this investment will be used in the education of 4,500 miners who wish to work in areas that have State permission and that also commit not to promote human trafficking, child labor and abandon the use of mercury.
“On Tuesday Peru suspended for 60 days several constitutional rights and launched an operation in the Amazon to evict thousands of illegal miners from an area of 10,000 hectares called La Pampa, where mining cannot be done because it is part of a buffer zone of a natural reserve”, Panorama explained.
Luis Vera, an environmental police officer told reporters that close to La Pampa there were thousands of illicit businesses where mercury, fuel, gold and beer were sold, but also women were sexually enslaved in bars and clubs.
Peru is the first gold producer in Latin America and the sixth worldwide. Experts estimate that up to a quarter of the annual gold production comes from illegal mining.
