The scene here borders on lunar. Beige shacks sit on a brown, rocky mountaintop pockmarked with mine shafts, not a drop of water in sight. Yet Teófilo Vásquez surveys it with a satisfied smile. “I came to the promised land,” he says. Like Vásquez, tens of thousands of miners and their families have taken to Peru’s remote highlands and jungle rivers, lured by stories of gold and dreams of a lucky strike. These days, Peruvian mining is best known for massive operations such as Yanacocha in the northern highlands, Latin America’s largest gold mine. But small-scale, low-tech mining—called artisanal mining—still abounds. For years, artisanal mining was officially ignored. No law regulated claims or established environmental, health and safety standards. And miners... [Log in to read more]