ACT and Vantor illegal-mining monitoring

ACT is a nonprofit that has worked with Indigenous communities in Colombia, Brazil and Suriname for about thirty years.² It uses satellite imagery to watch for illegal gold mining in places its staff cannot safely reach.² Its main case is Río Puré National Natural Park, home to the Yurí and Passé peoples, who live in voluntary isolation.² Dredges there mine the riverbed and release mercury into the water.^1,2 ACT works with AARIMO, a network of Colombian civil-society organizations formed to reduce the impacts of gold mining.² The imagery comes from Vantor, where ACT is a Purpose Partner.²

The team compares current images against Vantor's archive of more than twenty years to locate dredges and barges, follows their movement, and shares what it finds with authorities and partner institutions in Colombia and Brazil.² Vantor, writing in October 2026, says the work has documented hundreds of mining barges and contributed to the destruction of more than 115.² ACT's own page, from August 2026, gives more than 900 barges observed and nearly 100 destroyed after its alerts.¹

In November 2025 a binational police and military operation went up the Puré by boat and helicopter to blow up dredges, guided in part by this imagery.² A July 2026 MAAP report, produced with ACT and AARIMO, puts mining deforestation inside the park at 506 hectares between June 2024 and May 2026.³ Mining returned within months of each operation.³

The work runs in Vantor Hub, Vantor's hosted service, where AARIMO staff order and review new captures.² At 15 cm resolution the imagery can tell kinds of activity apart and reduces the need for overflights.² Terms and cost are not published.