Indigenous Lands

Spiralling frontier threats in Indigenous Amazonia
Indigenous Lands hold back Amazon deforestation, yet Brazil’s buffer-zone protections cover conservation units and not Indigenous territories, exposing their edges to extraction and drug trafficking. Satellite forest-loss records from 2008 to 2024 were compared inside the Vale do Javari Indigenous Land, noted for its tri-border setting and its large population living in voluntary isolation, and in zones out to 200 kilometers. Clearing there surged from 2017 to 2022, in 2022 running nearly 187.5 times the loss inside the territory, and 64% fell within holdings on the national rural land registry, misused to claim public land. It eased in 2023 and 2024 yet stayed well above the previous decade.
Spiralling frontier threats in Indigenous Amazonia