In Peru, hopes for carbon deal wash away with the soil

A newly paved road - and soaring gold prices - have triggered a Klondike-style gold rush in Peru's rain forest, choking waterways with sediment as seen in this aerial view and threatening the country's ability to preserve the forest via profitable carbon-offset deals. Photograph © Barbara Fraser.

February 14, 2011

A newly paved highway has sparked a Klondike-style gold rush in Peru's rich rain forest, threatening the country's chances to strike carbon-offset deals on the international market.

By Barbara Fraser

for the Daily Climate

PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru - At the bottom of a 20-foot-deep crater in the middle of the rain forest, a man wields a high-pressure hose, blasting away the walls of the pit, while a companion, stripped to his shorts and waist-deep in mud, dislodges debris clogging a suction hose that sends cobbles and mud cascading over a carpeted sluice.

At the end of the day, the men will scoop up the sand trapped on the carpet, add mercury, mix it to form an amalgamated lump of mercury and gold, burn off the mercury and hand the lump over to the owner of the operation, who will break off a piece to pay them. When the pit plays out, they will move on, leaving hectares of stripped earth and sediment-choked waterways behind.

In the Amazon forest of southwestern Peru, where the government has only a tenuous grip on law and order, Klondike-style gold frenzy has met the internal combustion engine. One of the world's most biologically diverse forests is at stake. 

Peru's Environment Ministry hopes to conserve the country's forests by peddling its rich carbon stocks on international markets. The gold fever luring as many as 200 people a day to the remote Madre de Dios region threatens to bury those plans under meters of mercury-laden mud.

Heavily forested Madre de Dios, Peru's top nature tourism destination, is a prime target for carbon-trading schemes such as REDD, or Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, and REDD+, which includes forests not necessarily threatened. But those schemes, which took a step forward in the United Nations climate talks in Cancún in December, are being overtaken by mining and other development. 

A long day trip

When Antonio Brack became the country's first environment minister in 2008, he announced a goal of zero net deforestation by 2021 and began seeking funds for forest conservation, touting the ecosystem services they provide and their value as a carbon sink.

The newly paved Interoceanic Highway is stymieing that goal. Satellite images and other data suggest carbon emissions from deforestation rose by more than 60 percent between 2006 and 2010, coinciding with increased mining and the resurfaced highway.

The road runs from the Pacific Coast to the Brazilian border, opening Brazil's markets - notably soy beans - to lucrative China trade. The stretch from Madre de Dios to the Andean highlands, virtually impassible in the rainy season just half a dozen years ago, is now a long day trip. 

Brack downplays the highway's impact, noting that the road has existed for decades and the only change is the asphalt. But satellite images show deforestation increasing along the route. From the air the region looks like a vast, mottled carpet of green, but gaps are opening along the highway as farmers clear land and the mining boom accelerates. The paved highway makes it easier to bring backhoes and bulldozers into the region. 

Officials say mining, which now trumps agriculture as the No. 1 cause of deforestation, has led to the clearing of some 150,000 hectares of forest - half the size of New York's Long Island - in the past quarter century.

"The future of millions of years of evolution rests in the hands of this land grab and massive development," says Gregory Asner, a tropical ecologist with the Carnegie Institution for Science, who helped the Environment Ministry set up a system to map carbon stocks and deforestation in Madre de Dios.

Unregulated mining

The heavy rains that make the east slope of the Andes so rich in plant life also wash gold-bearing sediment onto the Amazonian plain, where meandering rivers disperse it. The miners are mainly migrants from the highlands, who earn far more from mining than they can from farming. Nearly all lack the required environmental certification, and some do not even formally stake claims. 

As one area plays out, the miners move on. They recently invaded the buffer zone of the Tambopata Natural Reserve, fending off police who tried to dislodge them. The mining is so unregulated that no one knows exactly how much gold is extracted, what it is worth, or how much tax goes unpaid. Brack charges that corruption undermines efforts to control mining and encourage environmentally friendly development.

For Fernando León, the best solution is to market the region's other natural riches, from water supplies to Brazil nuts, breathtaking scenery and exotic fruits. León, who heads the Environment Ministry office that calculates the value of natural resources, sees carbon as part of a basket of environmental services that Peru can eventually market as a conservation incentive.

"We can start with what I call 'gourmet carbon,' because every molecule of carbon in the Amazon forest is surrounded by biodiversity, other environmental services and living cultures. We need to differentiate those in the market," León says. "Development in Amazonia has to be based on keeping the forest intact and establishing market chains of products stemming from its biodiversity, non-wood forest products."

With gold priced at more than $1,300 an ounce, however, it is hard for other economic activities to compete.

'Really hard to watch'

Mining and development along the highway pose special problems, says André da Silva Dias of the World Wildlife Fund's Amazon Network Initiative in Brazil. "Where (illegal) mining occurs, there's a sense that land rights aren't clear," Dias says. "At the very least, there's a lack of enforcement."

Before striking carbon-offset deals, investors will want assurance that deforestation is under control - and Asner's images show it is not. Illegal mining and lack of firm plans to counter deforestation along the Interoceanic Highway could make investors skittish. On the other hand, if officials downplay threats from the road, the danger of deforestation might be judged too slight to include the area in a REDD scheme, Dias says.

Lack of information could also hamper carbon-trading projects. "To implement a REDD project, you need a clear base line," he says. "You need to know what would happen if the project were not implemented. The threats to the forest in that area need to be thoroughly mapped."

Peru has made significant strides with mapping. By cross-referencing satellite photos with aerial radar and laser images and data from forest test plots, Asner has created the most detailed images ever of the forest in Madre de Dios. His data show that different types of forest store different amounts of carbon. Perversely, however, the highest carbon stocks are in the tall trees growing on younger soils - precisely the areas most attractive to miners and farmers. 

A pained tone creeps into Asner's voice when he talks about the region. "We're mapping every year," he says. "I can't do anything but witness (the loss) with the tools I've developed, and it's really hard to watch."

© Barbara Fraser. All rights reserved.

Barbara Fraser is a freelance journalist living in Peru. 

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