APTOPIX Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 3, 2014 photo, Prisaida, 2, sits in the shallow waters of a polluted lagoon as her parents mine for gold nearby, in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. The lagoon emerged as a result of miners bombarding the earth with jet streams of water in search of gold. The miners know they will be soon be evicted, Peru's government declared all informal mining illegal on April 19. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
APTOPIX Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 3, 2014 photo, a jet stream of water passes above two miners known as "Maraqueros" who remove stones and chunks of tree trunks that have been released with the aid of a rustic type of hydraulic jet known locally as a "Chupadera," in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. The Chupadera aims powerful jet streams of water at earth walls, releasing the soils that hold the sought after flecks of gold. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 4, 2014 photo, a miner melts an amalgam of gold and mercury to burn off the mercury, in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. This rudimentary process of extracting the gold from the amalgam, releases mercury vapors, adding to the contamination that is resulting in the deforestation of thousands of acres of the Amazon rainforest. Peru's government declared all informal mining illegal on April 19 and began a crackdown, dynamiting their equipment. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 4, 2014 photo, a miner naps near his workstation in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. Thousands of artisanal gold miners sweat through the 28-hour shifts and endure, for a few grams of gold, the perils of collapsing earth, limb-crushing machinery and the toxic mercury used to bind gold flecks. They chew coca leaf, a mild stimulant, to ward off the fatigue that can lead to fatal accidents. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 5, 2014 photo, a motortaxi delivers a cargo of mattresses to a mining camp in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. An estimated 20,000 wildcat miners toil in the malarial expanse of denuded rainforest known as La Pampa, an area nearly three times the size of Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 4, 2014 photo, a mining camp lines the horizon in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. Since artisanal gold mining took hold in La Pampa, miners began carving a lawless, series of ramshackle settlement out of the Amazonian jungle territory in 2008. The artisanal miners, who know they will be soon be evicted, are working up to the last minute after Peru's government declared all informal mining illegal on April 19. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
APTOPIX Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 4, 2014 photo, a miner holds an amalgam of mercury and gold he mined after working a 28-hour shift at an illegal gold mining process, in La Pampa, in Peru's Madre de Dios region. Thousands of artisanal gold miners sweat through the long shifts and endure, for a few grams of gold, the perils of collapsing earth, limb-crushing machinery and the toxic mercury used to bind gold flecks. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 5, 2014 photo, miners swish sands on special carpets, filtering for gold pieces that fall into the pool of water at their feet, in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. The carpets are removed from a rustic sluice-like contraption that capture the gold deposits, with the aid of a rustic hydraulic mining machine, known locally as a "Traca." (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
APTOPIX Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 5, 2014 photo, miners known as "Maraqueros" ready a rustic type of hydraulic jet known locally as a "Chupadera," after hauling the device about 16-meters deep into a crater at a gold mine process in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. A new threat now looms for the estimated 20,000 wildcat miners who toil in huge scar of denuded rainforest known as La Pampa, an area nearly three times the size of Washington, D.C. Peru's government declared all informal mining illegal on April 19 and began a crackdown. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 5, 2014 photo, a miner melts an amalgam of gold and mercury to burn off the mercury in front of a seller, in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. A 21st-century gold rush began in Peru in 2008. Thousands sweat through 28-hour shifts and endure, for a few grams of gold, the perils of collapsing earth, limb-crushing machinery and the toxic mercury used to bind gold flecks. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 3, 2014 photo, a sex worker who is employed at an informal bar waits for customers in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. Life is cheap in the mining camps. Deaths go unrecorded and the mercury miners use to bind gold flecks compounds the risks. Tons of the toxic metal have been dumped into rivers, contaminating fish, humans and other animals and plants. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 5, 2014 photo, a sex worker who is employed by an informal bar waits for customers in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. No one knows how much gold Madre de Dios contains, but Peru as a whole ranks sixth globally and first in Latin America in gold production. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 5, 2014 photo, a sex worker who is employed by an informal bar playfully sticks out her tongue while posing for a photo, outside her place of her employment in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. Since artisanal gold mining took hold in La Pampa, miners began carving a lawless, series of ramshackle settlement out of the Amazonian jungle territory in 2008. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 4, 2014 photo, a miner operates a rustic hydraulic mining machine, known locally as a "Traca," in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. The region is the epicenter of Latin America's biggest informal gold mining operation, which is now imperiled. Peru's government declared all informal mining illegal on April 19 and began a crackdown. It has raided the older boomtown of Huepetuhe, dynamiting backhoes, trucks and generators. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
APTOPIX Peru Gold Miners Photo Essay In this May 3, 2014 photo, a sex worker sits with potential customers at the informal bar "La Rica Miel" or Delicious Honey in English, in La Pampa in Peru's Madre de Dios region. Wildcat miners began arriving in 2008, populating shantytowns carved into the jungle along the interoceanic highway where coerced prostitution and tuberculosis now thrive. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
LA PAMPA, Peru (AP) — They sweat through 28-hour shifts in the malarial jungle of the Madre de Dios region of southeastern Peru, braving the perils of collapsing earth and limb-crushing machinery to come up with a few grams of gold.
Most illegal miners hail from impoverished highlands communities and even here barely earn subsistence wages. They chew coca leaf, a mild stimulant, to ward off the fatigue that can lead to fatal accidents.
Life is cheap in the mining camps. Deaths go unrecorded and the mercury miners use to bind the gold compounds the risks. Tons of mercury dumped into the environment poisons the food chain for society at large, starting with the miners and their families.
Peru’s government wants to end all that, rooting out the estimated 20,000 wildcat miners who toil in a huge scar of denuded Amazon rainforest known as La Pampa, an area nearly three times the size of Washington, D.C.
Peru’s government declared all informal mining illegal on April 19 and began a crackdown. It raided the older boomtown of Huepetuhe, dynamiting backhoes, trucks and generators. Troops even destroyed the outboard motors of canoes used to ferry mining equipment across the Inambari river.
In La Pampa, miners fear they are next. Their gasoline supplies have already been choked off by authorities.
Some buried their equipment after the crackdown began only to unearth it days later when no raid came. But come it eventually will, the government says, because there no legal mining concessions exist in La Pampa.
The government’s point man on eradicating illegal mining, Daniel Urresti, says the real criminals aren’t the miners, but an estimated 50 people they work for, who own the illegal machinery and buy the gold.
People in La Pampa say that if the authorities eradicate their livelihood, it must make good on promises to provide employment alternatives.
“Motors are my life. I’m a mechanic. If the government comes and destroys them, then from what will I and my family live?” said Leoncio Condori.
The 51-year-old, a native of the Andes city of Cuzco, has been fixing motors in La Pampa ever since artisanal gold miners began carving out lawless, ramshackle settlements from Amazon jungle there in 2008.
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Associated Press writers Franklin Briceno and Frank Bajak in Lima contributed to this report.
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