Background and aims <p>Tropical forests harbor highly biodiverse ecosystems. However, tropical ecosystems are facing increasing threats from deforestation due to several anthropogenic activities, such as urbanization, unsustainable agriculture, logging, and gold mining. The study aimed to analyze the recovery of soil properties and tree diversity over 24&#xa0;years after plantation establishment on lands degraded by gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon.</p> Methods <p>We measured soil properties, forest structure and species diversity in two plantations after 24&#xa0;years of establishment and compare these values with two forested areas (secondary and reference forest).</p> Results <p>We found that the establishment of long-term plantations significantly increased soil cation exchange capacity, P, K, silt, clay, and organic matter, while reducing pH and sand content, indicating a marked improvement in forest soil properties. Among the different sites, overall observed species richness increased from plantations to forests, with plantations lowest, secondary forest intermediate, and reference highest. Alpha diversity metrics were positively correlated with soil organic matter, silt, clay, and cation exchange capacity and negatively correlated with phosphorus and sand content. Soil organic matter, P, K, clay and cation exchange capacity were the most influential variables on species composition.</p> Conclusions <p>The results showed a substantial recovery of soil properties from plantations in long-abandoned mining lands. In addition to the effects on soil properties, tree planting also plays a crucial role by influencing forest regeneration, since the study highlights that soil properties and tree diversity of gold mining degraded lands of the Peruvian Amazon can be recovered by tree planting.</p>