Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index ranks Peru 110 of 178 countries worldwide. In Latin America, only El Salvador and Paraguay are placed lower.

The 2014 report uses 20 indicators to rank the 178 countries on their environmental performance, aggregating these 20 into nine principal categories and also showing how these have changed over the last ten years. Chile is the region’s outstandingly good performer, ranked at 29.

Peru’s low rating would have been even worse but for relatively good results it achieved in agriculture and fishing. There are no direct data in the index on the connection to extractives as such. The worst results over the last ten years for Peru have been in water and sanitation, air quality, and climate and energy. It should be borne in mind, however, that each category uses only one or two measures based on international research and evaluation. For example agriculture is evaluated by the amount of subsidies received and the quality of control over pesticide use.

The report is available at http://epi.yale.edu/files/ycelp_measuring_progress_manual.pdf