ABSTRACT Territorial planning in the Brazilian Amazon has taken on different forms since the second half of the twentieth century. In this article, territorial planning is treated as an instrument of political action and the space occupation as an inherent process in societies. Briefly, it is based on two conceptions of ordering: one that is strategic and attends to the control and domination of the territory by the State; and another that there is also spontaneous ordering which resides in the society-space relationship modes. Considering the current importance acquired by the Amazonian biodiversity (forest, rivers, minerals, traditional knowledge), the territorial planning is considered an instrument to organize its exploitation, not always based on sustainable criteria. The objective of the article is to analyze the territorial planning policies in the Brazilian Amazon, policies that subject the population, under the pretext of the region’s development, to the economic and environmental interests at stake. The research procedures consisted of collecting data from secondary and primary sources. While the secondary data were obtained from public agencies, the primary sources were collected using direct observation techniques in some regions of the Brazilian Amazon, as well as conversations with researchers, employees and residents. Regarding the results, we identified that the constant use of the planning instrument produces socio-environmental conflicts, as, most of the time, it puts planners and communities that traditionally occupy the territories in the Amazon in opposite positions.