While Peru has enjoyed large growth from the oil sector and gas industry, as well as other sectors, over the past ten years, the Latin American nation is still struggling with deforestation of the rainforest and illegal activity.

By Kimberley Homer, coolearth.org

According to an article from the Council on Foreign Relations, the country is grappling with “controversial” gas and oil businesses within the Amazon rainforest and is also seeing its endangered forest areas threatened by illegal logging, the building of dams and clearing.

“Peru faces a number of environmental hurdles, including a lack of adequate water infrastructure, deforestation and loss of biodiversity, increasing aridity associated with climate change, and inadequate environmental enforcement capabilities,” the article noted.

Peru is home to the third largest rainforest area in the world and the country as a whole is 50 per cent forested. Figures from the FAO published on Monga Bay suggest that each year, an area of up to 300,000 hectares is lost.

Tags: amazon, biodiversity, deforestation, rainforest