Today Peru, via an executive decree, announced it was suspending all petitions for new mining licences in the Madre De Dios region of the Amazon basin that is currently being decimated by a boom in the worst sort of enironmentally poisonous gold mining possible (see previous coverage). The govt’s Andina newswire begins this way (translated):
Lima, December 8 (ANDINA): The Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) today published an exective decree that prolongs until 31 December 2014 the suspension of the admission of mining petitions in the gold exclusion zone established in the Madre de Dios department.
In March 2010 MEM suspended the admission of mining petitions in Madre de Dios until 31 December 2010.
The measure is to complement the Executive emergency decree published in February that declared the re-ordering of mining in Madre de Dios in the national interest and established that in the exclusion zones no mining or exploration activities will be permitted.
The objective of the exclusion zones is the conservation of first growth forest, of CONTINUES HERE.
It all sounds very eco-friendly, doesn’t it? The gov’t does its thing, stops new mining and cracks down on the parabolic growth in the disaster in motion, we all live happily ever after. Unfortunately it’s all BS lip-service to appease those who are actually stupid enough to believe what these liars say. As you may recall, the problem isn’t the legal miners there, it’s the total lack of control the government has over the illegal artisanal mining. As this chart shows, since that “emergency decree” came into force back in February, production out of MDD has shot up and now accounts for 18.8% of the country’s gold production, double (yes, double) the number in less than a year.
And what had Peru done about the illegal mining? What kind of crackdown on the 300 people a day (seriously) that are moving into the area to exploit the gold and be exploited themselves? Nothing zip zero nada (surprise). It’s typical Twobreakfasts Peru: Say one thing, do another, screw the environment into the ground, hope nobody notices and go for the cash. Viva Investment Grade.