Mining-Driven Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Quilombola Territories of the Brazilian Amazon

Mining plays a crucial role in diversifying the energy matrix towards renewable energies, but it is one of the human activities with the highest environmental and social impacts. The Brazilian Amazon accounts for 72.5% of the country's mineral extraction. The loss of rainforest, soil, and water contamination due to the use of heavy metals impact the ecosystem and have implications for human settlements, such as the Quilombola Territories. 'Quilombolas' is the name given to communities descended from enslaved people who survived the regime of wealth production for Europe. Although this regime was abolished in 1888, they continue to fight for their land ownership rights due to the expansion of mining in their localities. This study aimed to identify the Quilombola Territory within the Amazon biome, which has the highest number of mining deforestation alerts, and to assess changes in Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) resulting from the impact of this activity by integrating remote sensing data and geospatial analysis techniques. The methodology was based on three steps: i) characterisation of the Quilombola Territories within the Amazon biome via a regularisation phase; ii) identification of the delimited Quilombola Territory with the highest number of mining deforestation alerts in the period 2016 - 2020; iii) estimation of LULC changes within the Quilombola Territory during the period 2014 - 2020. The results showed that mining was the class with the highest gain, with an increase of 1219 ha. Meanwhile, the natural vegetation class of primary forest showed the most significant loss of area, with 1182 ha. These changes are associated with the advancement of the industrial mining fronts of the largest bauxite producer in Brazil. This paper highlights the use of remote sensing data and geospatial analysis for monitoring the pressures from the expansion of mining projects in traditional territories.