Indigenous Lands are territories inhabited by multiple indigenous societies that express their worldviews (Little, 2002). These areas, demarcated across the entire national territory, are intended to safeguard the fundamental rights of Indigenous Peoples (Eloy Amado, 2015). However, the law enforcement has proven not to safeguard the integrity of these territories, as their population is constantly affected by economic activities, often illegal, such as mining, especially in alluvial gold mining, which generates direct ecological and sociocultural impacts wherever it occurs. In recent years, the newspapers’ headlines have showcased the mining sites due to their negative impacts on health, way of living, and territorial, cultural, and ancestral sovereignty (Senra et al., 2023).
To understand the location and severity of mining scars in the Indigenous Amazonia, this technical note aims to highlight the impact of these activities through a politicallegal and geospatial lens. In this regard the main regulatory acts guiding the issue were analyzed; subsequently, the size and distribution of areas influenced by mining in Indigenous Lands, their surroundings, and watersheds in the Amazon biome in Brazil over the last three decades were evaluated.
