Advancing knowledge on artisanal gold mining
Advancing knowledge on artisanal gold mining
Our Objective
This project aims to generate and share knowledge on artisanal gold mining to support the transition toward a more responsible model in the Amazon forest. By focusing on scientific evidence, stakeholder engagement, and capacity-building, it contributes to the development of fairer, cleaner, and more sustainable gold supply chains.
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The project was launched on March 1, 2023 and is currently in progress.
Summary
In Madre de Dios, we support the development of a more responsible gold supply chain by collecting large-scale data on artisanal and small-scale miners who are formalized or in the process of formalizing. Using experimental surveys, we explore miners’ preferences around formalization policies and cleaner technologies, while developing scientific methods to trace mercury-free gold.
The project also promotes positive narratives around responsible mining, engages with Swiss stakeholders, and supports miners through training and knowledge exchange. It is led by an interdisciplinary global team—including biologists, climate scientists, and economists—in collaboration with the SAM Hub and the Political Economy, Land Systems, and Environmental Governance teams.
Project Connections
Part of the solutionscape
Resilient Forested Landscapes – Promoting High Value Multifunctionality
Timeline
New Publication: What does it take for local leaders to shift gold mining toward responsible practice?
News July 2, 2026
In Madre de Dios, in the southeastern Peruvian Amazon, artisanal and small-scale gold mining sustains roughly half the regional economy and accounts for the largest area of forest lost to gold mining anywhere in Peru. For two decades, top-down formalization has struggled to ease that tension. A new study asks a different question: what do the people who lead mining collectives actually do, and when does their leadership open room for more responsible practice? Drawing on qualitative interviews with ten leaders of mining collectives and ten key informants, conducted between December 2024 and January 2025, the researchers traced how leaders' inner dimensions – their values and ways of leading – connect to outward practices within collectives and in policy arenas. Some values appeared widely shared across the mining community, including well-being tied to formalization, transparency, honesty, and spiritual and customary practices. Others were more distinctive to leaders: an emphasis on compliance and accountability, collective unity, dialogue over confrontation, and a stronger sense of responsibility toward the Amazonian forest. That last divergence has roots: many miners migrated from the Andean highlands, where the forest is understood differently, which helps explain why a close connection to it is less widely shared. The study also found a range of leadership styles at work – from those who bridge local and national arenas to those who drive momentum or reinforce institutional credibility – while the self-interested operator, the figure often assumed to dominate mining politics, was notably absent from this group. These accounts matter beyond mining. They show that change in contested landscapes cannot be read through policies, technologies, or formal institutions alone – it also turns on values, relationships, and the conditions under which local actors can take part in governance. The study is careful about what it claims: it does not measure outcomes, but identifies observable practices that may support longer-term shifts. One leader described inviting a government minister to see riverbank mining first-hand, arguing that "with good management it was possible to work" – an exchange the study links to a later ruling that eased certain restrictions for small-scale miners. Others worked to promote cleaner techniques, build external trust, strengthen coordination within collectives, and form a new regional federation oriented toward more inclusive and environmentally responsible policies. The work is grounded in one of the Amazon's most contested extractive frontiers, in the Solutionscape "Resilient forested landscapes, promoting high-value multifunctionality," where the Wyss Academy and Hub South America engage alongside local partners. It reflects a way of working that pairs grounded evidence with attention to governance as much as practice. It also sets a clear limit. Leaders are contested on two fronts – by the broader mining community and by rival leaders, sometimes branded "environmentalists" for their positions – and their room to act remains constrained by fragmented collective identities, power imbalances, and broader regulatory and political conditions. Leadership alone is not enough; bottom-up change and supportive policy have to move together. The article, Inner dimensions, outer change: exploring the transformative potential of leadership in artisanal and small-scale gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon, is available in The Extractive Industries and Society (open access). Led by Kattia Diaz-Ydones, it is co-authored by Fernando Fernandez, Clara L. Diebold, Ronny M. Condor, Jan Göpel, Sarah-Lan Mathez-Stiefel, Dominique Schmid, Armando Valdés-Velásquez, Arne Weiss, Gabriela Wiederkehr-Guerra, and Julie G. Zaehringer, bringing together researchers at the Wyss Academy for Nature, the University of Bern.
Fernando Fernández on the Swiss Better Gold Association Board
News May 5, 2026
The newly published Swiss Better Gold Impact Report 2025 reflects on the Swiss Better Gold Association’s work to support responsible gold value chains from mine to market and on key developments in its governance. Among them is the expansion of the Board to include civil society representation. Elected at the association’s General Assembly in June 2025, Dr. Fernando Fernández, Senior Research Scientist at the Wyss Academy for Nature, is one of two civil society representatives and also serves on the Accreditation Committee. As a member of the Accreditation Committee, Fernando contributes to the review of accreditation applications and discussions on due diligence, traceability, and continuous improvement. Swiss Better Gold, a nonprofit association working to strengthen responsible gold value chains from mine to market, says this broader Board composition is intended to widen perspectives and strengthen trust in how the association is governed. Fernando leads an interdisciplinary project in the Tambopata Solutionscape in Peru, working with Wyss Academy colleagues from the Research Team, Global Policy Outreach, and Hub South America, as well as academic and civil society partners with a local presence. The project has built a data ecosystem to support better decision-making in artisanal and small-scale mining. His work in the Tambopata Solutionscape in Peru “Maintaining multifunctional landscapes in a tropical forest frontier” focuses on generating actionable evidence for responsible gold mining practices. It includes sustained engagement with miners and other stakeholders on cleaner technologies, research on the demand for “ethical” gold from the Amazon, and work on traceability and value-chain accountability.
The global journey of Amazon gold
Project Update April 15, 2026
The Amazon Rainforest is commonly referred to as the “lungs of the Earth.” This vast, humid and green territory covers about 6.7 million square kilometers across nine countries in South America—roughly twice the size of India. While the forest is invaluable for its biome and as the home of Indigenous peoples, it remains under constant pressure from extractive activity. Gold mining, for example, both legal and illegal, has long been established in the region and drives an economy worth billions of dollars each year. Besides causing deforestation, the exploitation of the forest floor in search of gold often leaves behind heavily degraded land and releases mercury into waterways and the atmosphere. Globally, artisanal mining accounts for about one-third of all mercury released into the environment.Beyond the impact on nature, gold mining also causes undeniable social harm. Miners themselves are directly affected by mercury vapors that emerge during the process, causing serious short-term and long-term health effects, including neurological disorders and kidney damage. At the same time, for many people involved, mining remains one of the few viable ways to earn an income and support their families, as other alternatives are scarce.Because much of the gold mining in Madre de Dios is informal or illegal and therefore not fully captured in official statistics, estimates remain imprecise. Still, they suggest that the sector is worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year and may account for around 70% of the local economy. Yet the challenges linked to gold mining cannot be understood from a purely local perspective. They are complex, multifaceted, and fundamentally global. It sits within a wider system that extends beyond immediate territorial context, livelihoods, and environmental degradation. It includes broader regulatory challenges, violence and organized crime, international gold markets, and global supply chains, to name a few. In this series of texts and interviews, we take a closer look at the reality of gold mining in Peru’s Madre de Dios region and the international demand it feeds. By presenting a diverse range of perspectives, we aim to highlight the current situation on the ground and connect local and global approaches used to shape new solutions.
The history of mining in the Madre de Dios region
Project Update March 16, 2026
To better understand the history of gold mining in Peru’s Amazonian region of Madre de Dios — as well as its economic significance and social and environmental challenges — we spoke with Alejandro Portillo, Research Associate at the Wyss Academy, who has extensive experience working on mining and sustainability in the Peruvian Amazon.In this interview, Alejandro walks us through how gold mining took root in Madre de Dios, explains the critical differences between legal, informal, and illegal mining, and unpacks why mining has become such a central livelihood for tens of thousands of people in the region. He also sheds light on the profound environmental and health impacts of mercury use, the social consequences for local communities, and the structural barriers that make responsible mining difficult to scale.Finally, Alejandro reflects on what a fairer and more responsible mining sector could look like — from mercury-free technologies to improved labor conditions and access to formal markets — and why meaningful change requires aligning local realities with global demand.
The price of gold and good practices in artisanal mining
Project Update February 24, 2026
High gold prices are increasingly portrayed as an obstacle to more responsible mining. But the high price of gold is not the problem; it is a spotlight that reveals where the system was already failing. This is especially evident now, when gold has surpassed USD 5,000 per ounce, reaching a historic record in January 2026. The usual argument is simple: price rises → greed increases → illegality grows. Labor economics and recent evidence from Madre de Dios, Peru, offer a different way to look at this. An upcoming report (coming soon) on the gold supply chain shows that the main bottlenecks are not moral attitudes or the price of mercury, but rather labor institutions and marketing constraints. In artisanal mining, in Madre de Dios, workers typically receive a fixed share of production (around 25%), labor costs represent a significant fraction of total costs, and hiring follows informal but stable rules. Mercury, by comparison, is cheap. When the price of gold rises, mining becomes more attractive (relative to other jobs) and more people enter the sector. However, formal (and in some cases certified) mining cannot grow quickly: access is limited, selling with invoices reduces net income and delays payments, and not all production can be placed in certified markets. Illegal and informal mining grow because, in practice, it is the only segment capable of absorbing this increase in labor demand. Seen this way, high prices do not prevent responsible practices.They reveal frictions: Social norms for profit sharing within concessions, where workers often receive a fixed proportion of production. These unwritten rules structure everyday incentives and mean that the benefits of technological or institutional changes are not always distributed equitably. Differences in incentives between workers and concession holders over who bears the costs of change, since formalization or the adoption of more responsible practices often involves more effort, learning, or risk for some, while the potential benefits accrue to others. Liquidity and marketing constraints under formality, because selling gold formally usually involves slower payments, fewer buyers, and greater administrative requirements, which reduces short-term available income—especially for those who depend on daily cash flow. If we diagnose the problem as greed, the response is greater control and punishment. If we understand it as a challenge of the labor market and productive organization, the response is different: expanding legal access, reducing marketing bottlenecks, and designing transitions in which workers credibly share in the benefits—especially during price booms. Responsible mining does not fail because the price of gold is high. It struggles when institutions adjust more slowly than markets.
Understanding artisanal gold mining through interdisciplinary research
Project Update December 15, 2025
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining in the Amazon is often reduced to a shocking image: deforestation seen from above, polluted rivers, illegality. Dr. Fernando Fernández argues that this framing, while not wrong, is incomplete. Mining, he says, “is not only complex, but also urgent,” and approaching it from a single angle makes it easy to misunderstand both the problem and the people involved. Because the issue has many different dimensions and everyone has it's own problem definition; and these two combined make it really difficult to find solutions. The situation blocks any dialogue to find a solution, as the miners will have a proposal, the government another one, the researchers another one – which leave us without a shared vision to find a solution.Dr. Fernando Fernández is a senior research scientist at the Wyss Academy, focusing on political economy and environmental governance. He leads an interdisciplinary research project on artisanal gold mining and its challenges in Madre de Dios, Peru. Rather than treating mining solely as an environmental issue, he approaches it as a system shaped by incentives, risks, regulations, technologies, and human behavior. By embracing the complexity of the system, he steers clear of solutions that look elegant on paper but fail in practice.
PERUMIN 37: Putting responsible artisanal mining on the agenda
News September 30, 2025
A milestone moment was the forum “MAPE in Madre de Dios: challenges and opportunities for responsible mining,” co-organized by the Technical Group for Responsible Mining MAPE (Wyss Academy for Nature, Solidaridad, CINCIA, Pure Earth, and the Women Miners Network of Madre de Dios). The session was a success, bringing together over 100 participants and filling the room with interested voices. It also featured the participation of the Swiss Ambassador to Peru, underlining the importance of this dialogue for the region.
Gold beyond the gold mines
Project Update September 15, 2025
Gold mining is often framed as a local problem—something that happens “somewhere else,” in remote areas, informal camps, or deep in the forest. In an interview with Martina Burger, a research associate at the Wyss Academy, this framing is challenged from the outset. While “the issue manifests locally,” she explains, extraction is only one part of the broader gold value chain and of a far more complex system.With a background in climate science, Martina now examines the gold supply chain from a holistic perspective. Her research traces the journey of gold from its point of extraction, such as artisanal mines in Madre de Dios, Peru, to refineries, banks, and luxury industries in Switzerland. In her work, these places are directly connected, not only through the exchange of a commodity, but also through a web of economic, political, and social relationships that shape the impacts of gold along the entire chain.
Gold Mining: an urgent issue
Project Update July 15, 2025
Covering roughly 8 million hectares, Tambopata province in Peru is considered one of the country’s most biodiverse regions. Although more than half of the region is formally protected, the landscape has long been shaped by human settlement and economic activity. Deforestation driven by extractive industries remains the main threat, historically from logging and forest management, combined with agricultural expansion, and increasingly from alluvial gold mining, all of which contribute to forest loss and significant ecosystem degradation.In this scenario, Miguel Saraiva, the Director of the Wyss Academy's Hub South America is clear from the start: the work carried by him and his team does not begin with ideals, but with reality. “What we try to demonstrate,” he explains, “is that it is possible, with knowledge and targeted interventions, to transform a relationship of conflict between society and nature into one where both can win — where we can conserve nature while also guaranteeing people’s well-being.”
Working gold legally: a miner’s perspective
Project Update June 17, 2025
Lucila H. Ampuero is a formal gold miner from Playa Marta, in Peru’s Madre de Dios region, and one of the many women who play a central role in the region’s artisanal and small-scale mining sector. Her story reflects both the long-standing traditions of gold mining in the Amazon and the slow, demanding transition toward more responsible and formal practices.In this interview, Lucila shares her personal experience with formalization and the shift away from mercury-based gold extraction. Having worked for years with mercury — as most miners in the region historically have — she explains why she decided to adopt a mercury-free gravity table and what that change has meant for her work, her health, and her sense of pride as a miner. Her reflections reveal both the practical challenges of changing mining practices and the relief that comes with knowing she can continue working without being labeled an environmental polluter.Beyond technology, Lucila speaks about what mining means to her and her community: the sacrifices involved, the deep connection to the land, and the responsibility of providing dignified work for dozens of families. She also highlights the structural barriers miners face when trying to formalize — from high operating costs to limited institutional support — and why many miners struggle to make the transition, even when they want to.Lucila’s testimony offers a powerful reminder that responsible mining is not only about technology or regulation, but about people, livelihoods, and long-term visions for life in Madre de Dios.
Other Projects in this Solutionscape
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Forest Conservation through Nature-Based Livelihoods
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