Brazil’s government has begun removing thousands of non-Indigenous people from two native territories in a move that will affect thousands who live in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

The Brazilian intelligence agency ABIN said in a statement that the goal was to return the Apyterewa and Trincheira Bacaja lands in Para state to the original peoples. It did not say whether or not the expulsion of non-Indigenous people had been entirely peaceful.

The territories are located around the municipalities of Sao Felix do Xingu, Altamira, Anapu and Senador Jose Porfirio in Para state. Brazil’s government said the supreme court and other judges had ordered the operation.

Indigenous groups estimate more than 10,000 non-Indigenous people are living inside the two territories. ABIN said as many as 2,500 Indigenous people live in 51 villages within.

“The presence of strangers on Indigenous land threatens the integrity of the Indigenous [people] and causes other damages, such as the destruction of forests,” the agency said in its statement. It added that about 1,600 families lived illegally in that region, with some involved in illegal activities such as cattle raising and gold mining. “They also destroy native vegetation.”

The Apyterewa territory had the most deforestation of any Indigenous land in Brazil for four years running, according to official data. Footage obtained by local media and shared on social media in September showed hundreds of non-Indigenous people living in a newly built town with restaurants, bars and churches deep inside the lands of the Parakana.

Other authorities that participated in the action on Monday included Brazil’s ministry of Indigenous peoples, environment protection agency IBAMA, the federal police and armed forces, among many others. Several of those bodies had their powers limited and did little to protect Indigenous people’s territories during the far-right administration of former president Jair Bolsonaro between 2019 and 2022.

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has begun rebuilding environment protection agencies and created eight protected areas for Indigenous people. Soon after the beginning of his administration, his government expelled thousands of goldminers from the massive Yanomami Indigenous territory in the northern state of Roraima.

State and federal authorities this year also dislodged land-grabbers from the Alto Rio Guama territory. They threatened forcible expulsion of those settlers failing to leave, and pledged to eliminate access roads and irregular installations. Nearly all of the illegal residents departed voluntarily.

Encroachment on such territories over recent years prompted Brazil’s top court on Thursday to enshrine Indigenous land rights by denying a suit backed by farmers that sought to block an Indigenous group from expanding the size of its territorial claim.

In the case before the court, Santa Catarina state argued that the date Brazil’s constitution was promulgated – 5 October 1988 – should be the deadline for Indigenous peoples to have either physically occupied land or be legally fighting to reoccupy territory. Nine of 11 justices of Brazil’s supreme court ruled against that argument, a decision that has national implications.