Gold mining leaves heart of Peruvian Amazon a wasteland

Megan Thompson:

Destruction of the Amazon Rainforest is accelerating, with recent statistics showing 870 square miles was lost in July alone, nearly triple that of the same period last year.

And the fires currently burning in Brazil are only part of the story.

In Peru, where some 300 thousand square miles of the forest exist, illegal gold mining has caused devastation of its own.

But, as NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Leo Schwartz and New York University's Global Beat Program report, there is one region where Peru is having some success against the trend.

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