Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA 94305.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Nov 12;110(46):18454-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1318271110. Epub 2013 Oct 28.
Gold mining has rapidly increased in western Amazonia, but the rates and ecological impacts of mining remain poorly known and potentially underestimated. We combined field surveys, airborne mapping, and high-resolution satellite imaging to assess road- and river-based gold mining in the Madre de Dios region of the Peruvian Amazon from 1999 to 2012. In this period, the geographic extent of gold mining increased 400%. The average annual rate of forest loss as a result of gold mining tripled in 2008 following the global economic recession, closely associated with increased gold prices. Small clandestine operations now comprise more than half of all gold mining activities throughout the region. These rates of gold mining are far higher than previous estimates that were based on traditional satellite mapping techniques. Our results prove that gold mining is growing more rapidly than previously thought, and that high-resolution monitoring approaches are required to accurately quantify human impacts on tropical forests.
金矿开采在亚马逊西部地区迅速增加，但开采的速度和对生态的影响仍知之甚少，而且可能被低估了。我们结合实地调查、航空测绘和高分辨率卫星图像，评估了秘鲁亚马逊地区马德雷德迪奥斯地区从 1999 年到 2012 年期间的基于道路和河流的金矿开采情况。在此期间，金矿开采的地理范围增加了 400%。2008 年全球经济衰退后，由于金矿开采导致的森林损失平均年增长率增加了两倍，这与黄金价格的上涨密切相关。现在，小规模的秘密开采作业占该地区所有金矿开采活动的一半以上。这些金矿开采的速度远远高于之前基于传统卫星测绘技术的估计。我们的研究结果证明，金矿开采的速度比之前认为的要快得多，需要采用高分辨率监测方法来准确量化人类对热带森林的影响。
