1. Risk Is Clustered, Not Uniform The strongest TLRI scores are concentrated in a reduced number of regions, especially southern and gold-related territories. 2. Informality Alone Does Not Explain Risk Some regions combine high informal presence but lower fragility, while others combine moderate mining exposure with higher institutional weakness. 3. Formal Gold Overlap Matters Regions with formal gold production and strong illegal mining signals face additional supply-chain, reputational, and governance pressures. 6.6 Strategic Interpretation The results suggest that illegal mining risk should be understood as a territorial governance spectrum: ● some territories face latent vulnerability ● others face structured illicit pressure ● a smaller group faces critical legitimacy competition This reinforces the need for differentiated policy responses rather than one-size-fits-all national interventions. 6.7 Operational Implication The TLRI demonstrates value as an early warning system for governments, mining companies, and investors by identifying territories where governance stress may intensify before conflict escalation or operational disruption becomes fully visible. 7. Discussion 7.1 Interpretation of Findings The empirical application of the TLRI framework reinforces a central conclusion: illegal mining consolidation in Peru is territorially clustered rather than randomly distributed. Governance competition is concentrated in a reduced number of regions where informal mining achieves scale, continuity, and economic relevance. The concentration of high TLRI scores in territories such as Puno, Arequipa, Apurímac, Cusco, Madre de Dios, and La Libertad suggests that legitimacy competition intensifies where several structural conditions converge simultaneously: ● strong informal mining presence ● illicit financial capacity ● governance fragility ● territorial disruption potential ● coexistence with formal gold production This supports the argument that illegal mining should not be interpreted solely as a law-enforcement problem. In strategic territories, it behaves as a parallel governance actor capable of generating incentives, protection networks, patronage, and local influence. 39
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM0Mzk2