BOGOTÁ, Colombia — As Peruvians prepare to vote for a new president and Congress on Sunday, the pressing issue of illegal mining, which fuels widespread deforestation and mercury pollution in the Amazon, has barely registered on the campaign trail. Despite its expansion into Indigenous territories and its role as the country's largest illicit economy, most political platforms offer scant attention to combating the activity, according to experts and analyses of party proposals.
Illegal mining has surged in recent years, driven by record-high gold prices that have reached between $4,500 and $5,000 per ounce, making even modest operations lucrative. Once largely confined to regions like Madre de Dios, the practice now encroaches deeper into the Amazon rainforest and beyond, threatening biodiversity, public health, and local communities. Projections from the Peruvian Institute of Economics indicate that illegal mining generated more than $11.5 billion in 2025, alongside over 100 tons of gold exports, figures that rival the formal mining sector and exceed those from drug trafficking.
"Political parties don’t understand that illegal mining has become the country’s main criminal activity and the one that moves the most money," said César Ipenza, an environmental lawyer. He added, "There is either ignorance about what this represents for the country — or, in some cases, parties are already part of this economy." Ipenza's concerns highlight a perceived disconnect between the crisis's scale and the electoral discourse.
A March analysis by Peru’s Observatory of Illegal Mining examined the platforms of 36 registered political parties and found that only 12 included specific proposals to address the issue. The rest either offered vague generalities without concrete measures or ignored it altogether. Magaly Ávila, director of environmental governance at Proética, a Peruvian anti-corruption group, noted that around 64% of party platforms fail to meaningfully tackle illegal mining, with just 5% addressing it "clearly and explicitly."
"Illegal mining and illicit economies are not being prioritized in government plans," Ávila said. Her organization has tracked how the activity's ties to corruption and territorial control in the Amazon often go unmentioned by candidates focused on broader themes like security and economic growth.
Among the candidates proposing some measures are former ministers and technocrats such as Jorge Nieto and Alfonso López Chau, who advocate for gold traceability systems, enhanced financial intelligence, and protections for environmental defenders. However, these ideas remain fragmented and lack the comprehensive strategy experts say is needed. In contrast, prominent figures from conservative and populist parties, including Keiko Fujimori, Rafael López Aliaga, and César Acuña, emphasize security, extractive development, or economic expansion without directly confronting illegal mining or its criminal links.
Media personalities turned politicians, like Ricardo Belmont and Carlos Álvarez, have plans that omit the topic entirely. This variation in approaches underscores the challenge: while some acknowledge the problem, others appear to sidestep it amid political pressures from small-scale miners who have protested for looser regulations.
Peruvian authorities have launched operations and strategies against illegal mining in the past, but enforcement has been inconsistent, according to rights groups. The Associated Press reached out to several government entities for comment on illegal mining and protections for Indigenous communities but received no response by publication time. Lawmakers have extended a temporary registry allowing informal miners to operate while pursuing formalization, a process critics argue has been abused to perpetuate illegal activities.
Recent legislative changes have further hampered efforts, weakening prosecutors' and judges' abilities to pursue organized crime networks involved in mining, groups like the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) say. Julia Urrunaga, Peru program director at the EIA, described protests by small-scale miners as "highly organized," suggesting the influence of more powerful actors operating behind the scenes.
The use of mercury in illegal gold extraction exacerbates the environmental toll, contaminating rivers and entering the food chain via fish, a dietary staple in Amazonian communities. "In Amazonian river communities, between 50% and 70% of the diet is fish," said Mariano Castro, Peru’s former vice minister of environment. "So exposure increases exponentially, and mercury is highly toxic, with serious neurological impacts."
Environmental and health experts report that contamination levels in some areas already surpass safety standards, posing long-term risks to populations. Tabea Casique, a board member of AIDESEP, Peru’s largest Indigenous organization, warned that illegal mining "puts at risk our health, biodiversity and ways of life." She criticized most political parties for not accounting for the problem or offering concrete proposals.
Castro described state efforts as "insufficient," pointing to lawmakers' actions that have reduced penalties for illegal mining and limited its classification as organized crime. Oversight gaps enable illegally sourced gold to infiltrate legal supply chains, often laundered through small-scale processing plants. Ipenza urged better control of these plants and stronger coordination among agencies like customs, financial intelligence units, and prosecutors to track gold flows.
"There is no real way to trace mining production in Peru," Urrunaga said. "Authorities hold fragmented pieces of information, but there is no system — and apparently no political will — to connect them." She highlighted the scale of the issue, noting, "We are talking about more than $12 billion in illegal gold exports. How can this be happening in almost total impunity?"
Experts predict that without decisive action, the expansion will intensify, drawing in transnational criminal groups and amplifying impacts on Indigenous and local populations. Ipenza forecasted that the activity's spread throughout the Amazon "will bring contamination, transnational criminal groups and direct impacts on Indigenous and local populations." The next government, set to take office following Sunday's vote, will inherit a spiraling crisis demanding urgent attention.
"Authorities cannot fulfill their responsibility to protect citizens if they continue to normalize an activity that causes significant harm," Castro said. As voters weigh their choices, the silence on illegal mining in the campaign raises questions about Peru's ability to safeguard its environment and communities in the face of this growing threat.