Keep Suriname Green

Keep Suriname Green is the urgent call of green organisations in Suriname to keep Suriname green together. Caring for nature is, after all, a task for all of us.

Although Suriname is still the most forested country in the world in terms of forest cover per person, it does not yet have important matters in order to remain the most forested country. That is a cause for concern about the future.

Although the Republic of Suriname has repeatedly stated in international forums that it aims to keep 93% forest cover, this seems harder to achieve in practice. Nature conservation legislation is already 70 years old, there is still no agreement on spatial planning for the territory, and short-term economic interests still too often win out over long-term sustainable policy decisions.

Deforestation

Although Suriname has not yet seen large-scale deforestation of the kind caused by industrial agriculture in Asia and Brazil, forest cover is declining by around 0.06% a year. Foreign investors are interested in setting up large-scale agriculture in Suriname, with much still unclear about the exact location and the impact on our forest of the extensive deforestation expected.

Mining is also a major threat to keeping our forest cover. WWF recently published a report that ranks Suriname first in the world for deforestation caused by mining: no less than 28.5% of all deforestation in Suriname is directly linked to mining.

Source: WWF Germany (2023). Extracted Forests. Unearthing the role of mining-related deforestation as a driver of global deforestation.

It is not only the percentage of forest cover that matters; the quality of the forest matters too. Pressure on the forest is growing through road building, mining concessions issued outside the forest belt, the advancing agricultural frontier as forest is turned into farmland, and the impacts of climate change. Even protected areas are, in practice, not protected against other interests. The effects are already noticeable and largely irreversible: communities in the villages find less food, there are concerns about health, and living conditions for people and animals are deteriorating.

A savings account for the future

There is currently a great deal of attention for investment in the oil and gas sector. Strikingly, companies in these sectors are also calling on Suriname to preserve its forest, not least as compensation for global emissions. Both the government and the business community see promise in trading carbon credits and debt-for-nature swaps. If Suriname wants to keep this “savings account for the future”, and use the carbon credit trade, the forest has to stay standing.

Keep Suriname Green is a call to think nature-inclusively and with the future in mind when making policy and investment decisions. People and nature cannot wait until the forest is damaged further. The Sustainable Nature Management bill submitted to the National Assembly is an important step towards making more conscious choices as a society and protecting nature for our descendants. The law also lays a foundation for finally giving our indigenous and tribal brothers and sisters, who have helped keep more than 40% of the nature on our territory intact, recognition and compensation for that role. This is in addition to the official recognition and legal protection of the collective rights of the indigenous and tribal peoples of Suriname, which must finally be settled.

At keepsurinamegreen.sr we share new information about why it matters to keep Suriname green.

Green Growth Suriname Foundation / Forest93 · Conservation International Suriname · WWF Guianas · Tropenbos Suriname