The Amazon biome, the largest continuous tropical forest on the planet, occupies approximately 4.2 million square kilometers in Brazilian territory, housing around 30% of the world’s known biodiversity, including more than 40,000 plant species, 400 mammal species and 1,300 bird species. Furthermore, the region is home to the world’s largest river basin, responsible for approximately 20% of the planet’s available surface freshwater, playing a crucial role in regional and global climate regulation.
The Legal Amazon, a political-administrative boundary created by Law No. 5,173/1966, encompasses nine states of the Federation, incorporating territories from different biomes, such as the Cerrado and ecological transition zones. This section aims to guide specific public policies for the development of the region, which is home to vast areas of preserved forest as well as important urban centers, agricultural settlements, and expanding logistical infrastructure.
It is important to understand that the Amazon biome is more than an untouched forest: it is also home to major cities such as Manaus, Belém, Porto Velho, and Altamira, along with hundreds of small and mid-sized towns. Some cities, like Manaus, grew as a result of regional development policies – most notably the creation of the Manaus Free Trade Zone in 1967, aimed at promoting industrialization and integrating the Amazon into the national economy. While these initiatives spurred urban growth and job creation, they also placed greater pressure on local ecosystems.
Another factor that accentuated the land and socio-environmental complexity of the Amazon biome was the implementation of official colonization projects promoted by the Brazilian State, especially by INCRA, from the 1970s onwards. The creation of agricultural colonies, aimed at occupying and developing the forest, did not always consider the historical presence of indigenous peoples and traditional communities, resulting in overlapping rights and lasting conflicts. An emblematic example is the Apyterewa Indigenous Land, in Pará, where the overlap of rural settlements and indigenous lands generated serious land tensions.
New economic pressures have also emerged. Autazes, in the state of Amazonas, is home to one of the world’s largest potassium deposits, whose recently approved exploration seeks to meet Brazil’s growing demand for agricultural fertilizers – the country currently imports 95% of the potassium it consumes. However, the project has faced controversy and legal challenges, particularly concerning the prior consultation with the Mura people required under ILO Convention 169.”
In Coari, also in Amazonas, in the Urucu Oil Province, there are significant reserves of oil and natural gas, with an average production of 11,000 barrels of oil per day, and gas production in the area reaches 12.2 million cubic meters per day. Of this volume extracted in Urucu, 5.5 million cubic meters per day is transported by the Urucu-Coari-Manaus Gas Pipeline, along its 663 kilometers to the capital.
Furthermore, the construction of large hydroelectric plants, such as Santo Antônio and Jirau, on the Madeira River, and Belo Monte, on the Xingu River, profoundly altered demographic dynamics, generating intense migratory flows, disorderly urban expansion, and intense judicialization by the Public Prosecutor’s Office demanding compliance with the conditions of the Environmental Impact Studies.
In this context, pressure on Amazonian ecosystems comes from the expansion of the agricultural frontier, illegal logging, clandestine mining, and the grabbing of public lands, but also from disorderly urbanization, the implementation of large infrastructure projects, and the lack of adequate land use planning policies.
Much of the deforestation and environmental degradation occurs on unallocated public lands or in urban and rural areas, where the lack of ownership aggravates socio-environmental vulnerability. Without effective land regularization, territories become susceptible to irregular occupation, ecological degradation, and land-related violence.
Land regularization, therefore, is an essential instrument not only for the protection of forests and traditional peoples, but also for building more just, resilient, and environmentally sustainable Amazonian cities. Ownership of urban and rural lands, combined with territorial and environmental planning policies, is a necessary condition for ensuring rights, combating deforestation, and structuring economic alternatives compatible with conservation.
Although satellite monitoring and property georeferencing technologies have enabled significant advances in territorial mapping and inspection, they do not replace the legal recognition of local realities, nor do they resolve historical conflicts that require fair and effective land resolutions. Many traditional peoples and communities that inhabit dense forest areas remain invisible in satellite images, but they play a fundamental role in preserving biodiversity and ecosystem services.
“The 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30), to be held in Belém do Pará, represents a historic opportunity for the international community to recognize that protecting the Amazon requires a new land pact – one that acknowledges original land rights, corrects historical occupation distortions, and ensures a truly sustainable model of regional development.
COP30 represents a historic opportunity for the Amazon to be recognized not only as a conservation frontier, but also as a living, inhabited, and strategic territory for the survival of the planet. Land regularization – by guaranteeing rights, organizing the territory, and promoting social justice – is a necessary condition for environmental preservation and sustainable development in the region. This moment demands more than intentions; it requires concrete commitments. If Brazil and the international community act with courage and responsibility, the Amazon could become a symbol of regeneration and a new civilizational pact. Otherwise, we risk an irreversible threat to biodiversity, traditional peoples, and the very future of Earth’s climate.
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English version: Nexus Traduções, edited by Denis Pacheco
