Imagine an arid, desolate and barren landscape, this is what the planet Mars looks like. For many scientists, and other entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Mars could, in the future and with a lot of effort, be terraformed, as the action of modifying a hostile environment to make it habitable for human beings is called. Now, what if I told you that, right now, we are turning our Amazon, through an activity like gold mining, into a Martian landscape? This is happening at great speed at this very moment.
The Amazon, the lungs of the world, is turning into a desert
Gold mining in the Amazon is not new, but its environmental impact has intensified in the last two decades. Large areas of the Amazon rainforest have been deforested, and soils have been destroyed due to mining, leaving behind a devastated landscape that resembles a desert. This reverse terraforming process not only eliminates biodiversity but also profoundly alters soil structure and fertility almost instantaneously, rendering it incapable of natural regeneration.
Mining degrades the soil in multiple ways. First, it destroys the surface layer rich in organic matter where the mineral, also known as “black gold” or “topsoil”. This surface layer is crucial for soil fertility, water holding capacity and other processes essential for plants. This organic matter is a fundamental component for the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, as it feeds the soil microbiome, a complex community of microorganisms that includes bacteria, fungi and other organisms that break down organic matter and recycle nutrients. Without these processes, soils lose their ability to self-repair and become barren, unable to support biodiversity of flora and fauna.
This process is leaving indelible traces in the region, profoundly altering habitats, giving rise to what scientists call “new ecosystems”. A new ecosystem is an environment profoundly modified by human activity, where native flora and fauna species are largely absent, while the soil and natural cycles have been profoundly disturbed. The impact of gold mining in the region pushes the state of Amazonian ecosystems, as we know it, back millions of years into the past.
Many sites impacted by mining in the Amazon are rapidly accumulating mountains of compacted rocks and vast expanses of sand from the scouring of soils. By 2023, an estimated 1.3 million hectares —about the size of Puerto Rico— were impacted by gold mining in the Amazon basin. In addition, the use of mercury and other chemicals in the process of extracting the coveted mineral contaminates the soil and nearby bodies of water, aggravating the ecological and environmental health crisis that already affects 34.1 million people, including 2.7 million Indigenous people distributed among 511 Indigenous groups that inhabit the region. Illegal mining has invaded 370 Indigenous territories while legal concessions cover 1131 territories in six countries (Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela).
In an attempt to regulate illegal mining, the governments of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Venezuela have declared vast areas as mining “corridors” or “arcs” in which formal gold mining is permitted. The remedy, however, seems to be worse than the disease, since the governments in power have not implemented strict environmental monitoring or legislation, let alone the application of adequate methodologies for its restoration. Within this context of the legalization of mining in the Amazon, the overlapping of legal mining concessions with indigenous territories, natural reserves, national forests and agricultural lands has fostered social conflicts, criminality, and illegal mining invasions. Thus, instead of creating the necessary conditions for the sustainable development of the Amazon, governments have facilitated the development of activities that are destructive to life and biodiversity.
Mitigation and solutions: reversing reverse terraforming
Although the damage caused by gold mining is considerable, there is still hope. Various strategies and technologies can help mitigate the effects of desertification and restore the ability of soils to regenerate. One technique is ecological restoration with a focus on recovering soil functionality through the cultivation of native species that absorb nitrogen from the air—known as legumes— the use of microorganisms to rehabilitate the soil microbiome, and the incorporation of organic matter from other non-impacted sectors to improve soil quality. Restoration and rehabilitation practices must consider the ecological conditions of each sector of the impacted landscape and the mining technologies prevalent in each area to adapt restoration protocols according to the existing mining waste.
On the other hand, advances in biotechnology could provide more effective solutions to restore soils and the microbiome. Using bioengineering techniques to design specific solutions to recover degraded soils is an option that needs to be explored. The development of cover species and microorganisms with the ability to fix heavy metals, restore organic matter, fix nutrients and improve soil structure can accelerate the recovery process of impacted ecosystems.
Prevention of illegal mining and the application of good soil management practices are essential to prevent the problem from continuing. The regulation of this activity can significantly reduce the environmental impact with the implementation of less destructive methods for gold extraction in legalized areas, thus avoiding desertification. For example, legal concessionaires could implement the storage of “topsoil” in their management practices, for its later reincorporation to the impacted areas once the extraction activity has been completed. The adoption of these environmentally responsible methodologies can be incentivized with tax reductions and other legal and administrative initiatives.
However, the fundamental solution to combat desertification and loss of ecosystem services caused by gold mining is based on a shift to agro-ecological practices and sustainable use of the standing Amazonian forest. Governments must prevent the expansion of mining into new areas of the Amazon and invest in sustainable agricultural systems, such as agroecology and agroforestry. These changes include encouraging the development of industries and bioeconomies that use the biodiversity of the standing forest and in which local communities play a key role in value chains.
Conclusion
While scientists strive to understand how we might terraform Mars to make it habitable for humans, gold mining in the Amazon is creating large-scale biological deserts, transforming ecosystems critical to the planet and local communities into inhospitable landscapes. This process of reverse terraforming should make us reflect on the impact our actions are having on the Amazon and the urgent need to restore or rehabilitate what we are destroying.
While technologies and strategies to mitigate the effects of desertification by gold mining exist, or can be developed, their effective implementation will depend on regional and global commitment to preserve these ecosystems. As with the terraforming of Mars, the challenge of restoring the Amazon requires an ambitious and collaborative approach. But unlike the effort it would take to transform the red planet, we can turn the tide and restore life to the Amazon on our planet today.
Text produced jointly with the Inter-American Research Institute on Global Changes (IAI). The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of their organizations.
*Machine translation proofread by Janaína da Silva.
Autor
PhD in Biology from the University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom). He has led forest restoration efforts in areas impacted by gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon.
