The sharp rise in gold prices has driven a surge of illegal mining in Brazil, much of it in the Amazon rainforest, according to a study published Tuesday.
Gold output in Brazil, the world’s 14th-biggest producer last year, has soared since the coronavirus pandemic pushed international prices to record highs.
Of the 112 tonnes of gold produced in Brazil last year, at least seven percent was illegal and 25 percent potentially illegal, found the study from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).
“From 2020 to 2021, there was a 44-percent increase in the amount of illegal gold produced,” said the study.
The trend continued basically unchanged in the first six months of 2022, it found.
Lucrative profits are driving a gold rush in the Brazilian Amazon, where the amount of deforestation for mining set a record of 121 square kilometers (47 square miles) last year, according to satellite monitoring by the national space agency, INPE.
