Rainforest destruction from gold mining hits all-time high in Peru.

Small-scale gold mining has destroyed more than 170,000 acres of primary rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon in the past five years, according to a new analysis by scientists at Wake Forest University's Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation (CINCIA).That's an area larger than San Francisco and 30 percent more than previously reported.

The scale of the deforestation is really shocking, said Luis Fernandez, executive director of CINCIA and research associate professor in the department of biology. "In 2013, the first comprehensive look at Peruvian rainforest lost from mining showed 30,000 hectares. Five years later, we have found nearly 100,000 hectares of deforested landscape."The scientists at CINCIA, based in the Madre de Dios region of Peru, have developed a new data fusion method to identify areas destroyed by this small or artisanal-scale mining. Combining existing CLASlite forest monitoring technology and Global Forest Change data sets on forest loss, this new deforestation detection tool is 20-25 percent more accurate than those used previously.