The raid over several days this week was part of an intensified government campaign against illegal gold mining in Madre de Dios, one of Peru’s most biodiverse regions, as authorities try to stop the activity from advancing into protected areas of the Amazon. Mining has stripped away vast areas of rainforest, leaving behind a scarred landscape of contaminated pools and altered rivers in the hunt for lucrative gold.

Teams of soldiers on Tuesday stormed Tambopata National Park, a spot in the Peruvian Amazon in the southeastern Madre de Dios region visited by an average of 40,000 tourists per year. ABC News documented countless gold mining camps along the Tambopata river, which was home to a rich rainforest a few years prior.

Global Conservation is working under a newly signed cooperation agreement with Peru’s Public Ministry’s Specialized Environmental Prosecutors Office to undertake a dangerous, multi-phase national park enforcement mission to remove illegal miners and organized crime syndicates destroying one of Peru’s most important and largest national parks, Tambopata National Park in the Amazon.

Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon are fusing tradition and technology to protect territory, assert rights, and respond faster than ever.

Global Conservation collaborates with numerous individuals worldwide who are pioneering in the fields of environmentalism, encompassing anti-poaching, wildlife conservation, and the promotion of human-wildlife coexistence. We have the great honor of highlighting some of our Heros for you by sharing their history and stories.

Indigenous communities settled in the buffer zone of Manu National Park have reported land grabs and the constant presence of coca growers and drug traffickers. Residents of three communities will be trained as eco-guards and trained to monitor their forests using technology and, consequently, the protected natural area.

The Directorate of Amazonian and National Surveillance, a unit of the Peruvian Air Force, flew over part of the affected areas and found expansion of deforestation and coca plantations.

Deploying Global Park Defense (GPD) in partnership with the Asháninka Indigenous Communities, SERNAP, the Peruvian Air Force, Naval Marines, and law enforcement will deliver the critical expansion of protection across over 400 kilometers and 400,000 hectares focused on two primary areas with 10 indigenous communities.

With the support of the Foundation for Sustainable Conservation (FUNCOS), Global Conservation has put in place, for the first time, real community protection for these two large newly-designated Indigenous Territories—called Comarcas in Panama and Communal Reserves in Peru.

Global Conservation’s Executive Director and Director of South America were on mission this week to assist Podocarpus National Park to remove 1,000+ illegal miners from deep within the protected area.

Global Conservation funding SMART Patrols, Joint Operations, Naval River Stations, Tourism Ecolodge and Docks

Global Conservation has been invited by SERNANP, the national parks authority of Peru, to deploy Global Park Defense to protect the borders of Manu National Park spanning over 1,700,000 hectares from the Andes to the Amazon.

Global Conservation is invited by the Government of Peru to assist in deploying Global Park Defense in two critical areas facing deforestation in Otishi National Park and Asháninka Communal Reserve.