The Winter of Peru's Discontent
The Winter of Peru's Discontent
In a preview article from the Summer 2011 issue of Americas Quarterly, Caroline Stauffer writes about a remote jungle town in Peru where the country's decade-long economic boom is a far-away myth.
The Madre de Dios department in the Amazon region of southeastern Peru produces 10 percent of the nation’s gold output at a time when gold prices have risen nearly 25 percent over the past year (and more than 450 percent over the past 10 years). But none of that wealth is apparent during a visit to its mosquito-infested capital of Puerto Maldonado. An open drain runs by the central plaza, steps away from a sparsely equipped health clinic, where a tattered medical notice warns of the perils of dengue fever.
Nearby, one of the continent’s most ambitious projects—the Interoceanic Highway linking Brazil’s Atlantic coast to Peru’s Pacific ports—promises to turn the region into a bustling crossroads of international commerce. An unfinished bridge jutting out over the Madre de Dios River is the final link of the mostly Brazilian-built highway, which opened for business in January.
The sharp contrast between the region’s rich promise and its poverty is bitterly obvious to Puerto Maldonado’s citizens.
“With so much wealth around us, I just don’t understand how we can be so poor,” said retired schoolteacher Ricardo Gahona Salas, 61, president of Puerto Maldonado’s government-run public welfare society.
Read the full text of the article, which is a preview from the Summer 2011 issue of Americas Quarterly, at www.AmericasQuarterly.org.
Caroline Stauffer is a Lima-based correspondent for Thomson Reuters and a former Americas Quarterly editorial associate.
