Suriname has some of the largest, most intact rainforests in the world. The Amazon covers around 93% of its surface area, making it one of the only countries with a net-negative carbon footprint. But at the same time, timber and mining concessions are expanding through the forest, with multinational companies moving in on Indigenous lands. Despite its environmental track record, Suriname is still the only country in South America that hasn’t formally recognized the territorial rights of Indigenous and Maroon peoples trying to conserve the rainforest. Years of legal challenges have stalled, and the government continues to advance projects that threaten widespread deforestation and pollution. “[Indigenous groups] have endured historical injustices and ongoing challenges in defending their forests and their rights from commercial logging and mining, which are increasingly weakening their legal capacity to control and manage their forests sustainably,” the International Land Coalition (ILC), an alliance of groups advocating land governance, said a recent report. At the center of the fight are the Saamaka peoples, who occupy 1.4 million hectares (3.5 million acres) of land, 80% of which is still untouched forest. The Afro-descendent Saamaka, whose ancestors escaped slavery by moving into the forest, are made up of six tribal groups and represent about a fifth of the country’s total population. A Saamaka woman in Suriname. Photo by Riano Gunther/ILC In 2007, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ordered the government to demarcate Saamaka territory according to ancestral claims, with the goal of giving them control over the…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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