Death threats from illegal miners force the evacuation of the Panguana Conservation Area in the Peruvian Amazon: “We left due to lack of guarantees”

Read more | Emergency in Ucayali, Peru: 15 indigenous communities affected by intense rains demand attention from the State

This person, who prefers to keep his name confidential, says that for several months they sought state support to stop the entry of illegal mining machinery into the reserved area, in addition to stopping the invasions and loss of the forest as a consequence of the mining presence.

“We asked for intervention for everything that is illegal mining and tree felling because the invasions were becoming more and more. On a Panguana property there were approximately 30 machines,” says the source reserved for Your Day. “They even began to make roads so that the trucks with fuel and machinery could enter as if they were at home,” he adds.

With an area of ​​700 hectares, Panguana is located in the District of Yuyapichis, Province of Puerto Inca province, in Huánucoin the Peruvian Amazon. Its history dates back to the 1960s, when German researchers María and Hans Wilhelm Koepcke—who had a little daughter, Juliane—started a research project there and established the first biological station in Peru.

In 1971, Juliane Koepcke was the only survivor of a plane crash in the Peruvian Amazon, in which her mother died, while traveling from Lima to Pucallpa. Not only did it survive for 11 days in the middle of the Amazon, but until now it remains connected to the Peruvian jungle through Panguana, which in 2011 became this conservation area on the banks of the Yuyapichis River, in the buffer zone of the El Sira Communal Reserve.

Threats in the conservation area

Between December 1 and 20, the Specialized Environmental Prosecutor’s Office (FEMA) of Ucayali, in coordination with the FEMA of Huánuco, State institutions and the Armed and Police Forces, implemented A operationive in Yuyapichis That Heares 20 DAYS. The objective was to maintain a team permanently in the area to stop mining activity.

“As a result of the growth of mining, as the prosecutor’s office we requested before the regional table of Huánuco [Mesa Regional de Control y Vigilancia Forestal y de Fauna Silvestre] “This is a permanent patrol for a period of at least 20 days,” he says. Your Day the environmental prosecutor of Ucayali, Dumas Campos.

Campos adds that a few months ago a pilot plan began in Curimaná, where the authorities stayed for at least 10 days. During that operation, Campos mentions, The illegal miners left the area where they had settled. Therefore, they decided to replicate the plan in Yuyapichis. “We saw that Yuyapichis could also have good results, but for longer, because there the impact is much greater, the investment is greater, and there is a greater amount of machinery for mining. In Curimaná they were small engines, in Yuyapichis it is heavy machinery“, assures the prosecutor about the operation.

This constant presence, apparently, was the beginning of the miners’ retaliation. César Ipenza, a lawyer specialized in environmental issues and closely linked to the ACP Panguana due to his close friendship with Juliane Koepcke, points out that during this period, “the miners could not operate, therefore, they were upset.”

The lawyer also details that it was the Police that warned him that “The miners had hired hitmen to threaten and kill people who were in Panguana“The information, says Ipenza, was corroborated by personnel from the Public Ministry. Ipenza assures that at that time they were not scientists in the ACP, only the personnel who work permanently in Panguana, who, in the face of these threats, requested guarantees for their lives. The expert also mentions that those who were dedicated to the protection of this reserved area have supported the actions of the authorities to eradicate illegal mining.

The staff who work in Panguana have been denouncing the advance of illegal mining for months. In September 2025, Your Day published a report that reported on the fear and risk in which those who worked in the ACP found themselves, as well as the damage caused to the protected area, the forests and the ecosystem of the Yuyapichis River.

According to the satellite analyzes carried out at that time, mining was already had deforested 2.5 hectares of forest around the protected area, 0.5 hectares within it. However, with the passing of the months and the intensity of mining activity, this figure has been increasing.

The damage, however, is much greater in the entire Yuyapichis area. Prosecutor Dumas Campos points out that the impact on the forests and the river is increasing. “They divert the river towards the areas where the gold is. “They are altering the riverbed,” comments the prosecutor to explain how the machines and backhoes used to remove the earth and extract the gold are destroying the river ecosystem Yuyapichis and the surrounding forests. Their statements are reflected in the photographs and satellite images that show the damage in this area of ​​the Peruvian Amazon.

Read more | Peru’s environmental challenges in 2026: stopping illegal mining and organized crime in an election year

The future of Panguana

It is not yet clear when Panguana workers will be able to return. At the moment, the protected area is guarded by personnel who are temporarily in charge of protecting it. The goal is to stop the advance of mining, but conservation and research work is not being carried out.

“The Ministry of Justice gave the guarantees, but it is not safe yet,” comments Ipenza and reiterates the request that immediate attention be provided to the area. “I think it could be an example of releasing illegal mining; it is possible to control it by stopping the entry of machinery, supplies and everything that enters the area. For me, it can be resolved.”

Eric Cosio, senior professor of the Department of Sciences at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, expresses his concern about the project. climate change monitoring of which the ACP Panguana is a part.

The researcher says that in December 2024, Panguana was included in a “monitoring network of atmosphere-vegetation interactions throughout the western Amazon”, which already has three other measurement stations located in other areas of Peru: the Tambopata National Reserve and the Los Amigos Biological Station, both in Madre de Dios; and a third in the Sucusari sector, in Loreto.

Cosio explains that the equipment installed for this project—operated by the Institute of Nature, Land and Energy (INTE)—provides information on greenhouse gas exchange. “It is a system of measuring plots in the forest with towers that go above the tree canopy. They go from Madre de Dios to the north of Iquitos and are part of what is known as the Andes Flux network, which we started 10 years ago.”

The expert states that Panguana is located in an area between the Andes and the Montes del Sira mountain range, “a kind of atmospheric funnel that moves water from north to south. So for us Panguana was super important,” he says and adds that currently “there is no information on climate trends in the western Amazon”, therefore, “this first network for monitoring atmosphere-vegetation interactions throughout the western Amazon” is very important.

One of the things that is not taken into account, adds Cosio, is that “the western Amazon, from a historical, geological and technical point of view, is different because it has always had biodiversity refuges at times when the central Amazon became savanna.” However, there was not enough information about what is happening in these areas, so it was necessary to be able to obtain it, for which this monitoring network has been installed. Now, illegal mining puts these activities in Panguana at risk.

Regarding the next actions that will be taken to stop the advance of illegal mining in Yuyapichis, the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office mentions that this January 15 The Huánuco regional board will have a meeting to deal exclusively with the Panguana case.