Gold mining presumed to be illegal caused 6,000 hectares (more than 14,800 acres) of deforestation in Amazonian protected areas and Indigenous territories during the last three months of 2025, according to a new quarterly report from the Amazon Mining Watch platform.New mining scars were identified in all nine Amazonian countries, with Brazil, Peru and Guyana suffering the highest levels of mining-linked deforestation.Soaring gold prices are driving this destruction, experts say, and call for more monitoring, law enforcement and coordinated action between countries to tackle the issue.Using an AI algorithm that’s constantly being improved, the Amazon Mining Watch platform aims to serve as an early-warning tool for authorities and civil society to identify and address new incidences of illegal gold mining, especially in border areas.
In July 2025, the Indigenous Shuar people celebrated the end of a decade-long struggle when they received official titles for three communities — the Shuar Tunants, Kampan and Tsuntsuim –- within the Kutukú Shaimi Protected Forest, in the south of the Ecuadorean Amazon.
But in one of those communities, satellite imagery shows that between August and December 2025, a gaping hole appeared in the forest around a riverbend — a mining scar. Despite the Tunants territory’s newly formalized status, deforestation due to gold mining nearly tripled, reaching 2 hectares (5 acres) in size in the last three months of 2025, according to Amazon Mining Watch Panorama, a new quarterly report.
