Gold threat to tropical forests

The scientific journal Environmental Research Letters has published “Global demand for gold is another threat for tropical forests” by Nora Alvarez and Mitchell Aide.

Using advanced land-mapping techniques, they analysed changes in forest cover at gold-mining sites in tropical moist forests of South America.

Gold mining causes significant alteration to the environment …

…  deforestation has been an important consequence of the global demand for gold  …

…  most of the gold-mining deforestation has been concentrated in remote areas, which have high conservation value.