Journalists are pairing satellite and AI to expose illegal mining in the Amazon
Joseph Poliszuk, a Venezuelan journalist in exile, used satellite imagery and AI to investigate illegal gold mining in the Amazon after being forced to flee his country. He developed a machine learning model to identify thousands of mining sites in Venezuela, some located in protected areas, and linked them to criminal organizations. His work, part of a growing trend in environmental journalism, demonstrates how remote sensing and AI can overcome the dangers and limitations of on-the-ground reporting in remote regions.
- ▪Joseph Poliszuk fled Venezuela in 2018 after exposing corruption and faced threats from Maduro loyalists.
- ▪With support from the Pulitzer Center and Earth Genome, Poliszuk used AI to identify 3,718 illegal gold mining sites in Venezuela's Amazonas and Bolívar states.
- ▪Some of the mining operations were located in protected indigenous lands and Canaima National Park, and were linked to Venezuelan, Colombian, and Brazilian criminal groups.
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In 2018, Joseph Poliszuk fled Venezuela. That year, after exposing corruption in then-President Nicolas Maduro’s administration, he had become the target of lawsuits by wealthy Maduro loyalists. He and several of his colleagues at the independent outlet Armando.info packed up their lives and fled the country under threat of imprisonment. For years, Poliszuk had published stories on Southern Venezuela, which is made up of sparsely populated states that cover large swaths of the Amazon Basin and the Orinoco River Basin. Through field reporting, Poliszuk had exposed illegal gold mines, narcotrafficking operations, and crimes against indigenous groups scattered throughout the region’s rainforests.
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