Peru Cracks Down on Illegal Gold Mining in Amazon Reserve with Military Operation

Peru's military launched Operation Mercury 2 this week to dismantle illegal gold mining camps in the Amazon reserve. The operation aimed to remove all miners from Tambopata National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site and home to a rich rainforest.

The park is one of six endangered national parks in Peru where mining has ravaged hundreds of square miles of federally protected areas. Since the first Operation Mercury in 2019, gold prices have more than tripled globally, rising from an average of $1,394 per ounce to roughly $4,395 per ounce today.

The soaring price has made extracting even small amounts of gold increasingly lucrative, driving mining expansion across nine regions of the Peruvian Amazon. Authorities detonated explosives they placed on mining equipment found in Tambopata National Park, and members of the military escorted women and a child off the premises for questioning.