Peruvian police officers raided
dozens of illegal gold mining camps along the edge of the country’s Tambopata
National Reserve. These raids were the first operations by the Peruvian
government in the country’s Madre de Dios region since an earlier series of
raids ended in December. Reports added that while the police razed more than 50
camps, most of the miners had escaped in advance of the raids, and that police
failed to find much of the heavy machinery used by the illegal gold miners.
Reuters noted that continued raid by the Peruvian armed
forces could hurt Peru’s gold production in 2015 and affect its status as the
world’s fifth biggest gold producer. According to the article, illegal gold
mining accounted for 10% of Peru’s overall gold production until the 2014
crackdown.
Peruvian business journal El
Comercio published a photo essay on the raids in La Pampa. El Comercio
photographers accompanied the 900 agents involved in the raids, and were
present when they rescued 32 women who had been trapped into prostitution.
In other mining-related news, Peruvian economist Hernando de
Soto will debate
the anti-mining leaders from the protests and social conflicts regarding the
Conga, Tía María, and Las Bambas mining projects, among others. De Soto has long
been a proponent of the rights of small-scale miners, so this debate will
feature two alternative perspectives on the role of mining in Peruvian society
to the government’s preference for large scale, tightly regulated projects.
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