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Assignment: Peru's Gold Rush

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Peru's Gold Rush

12/07/2012

BBC World Service - Assignment, Peru's Gold Rush

The gold rush in Peru that is threatening the Amazon rainforest.

For Assignment Rob Walker goes to the Peruvian Amazon to report on the gold rush there that is threatening the rainforest.

Poor farmers are flocking to the Peruvian Amazon in the hope of striking it rich as gold miners. 

They are being lured by the record prices gold has reached in the last few years. 

But illegal mining is causing massive mercury pollution and depleting forests in one of the world's most bio-diverse regions. 

For Assignment, Rob Walker heads into the rainforest to see whether the tough new measures the Peruvian government has introduced to control the miners are working. 

Assignment producer: Alicia Trujillo

(Image: A nugget of gold)

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