Forest Politics in Suriname

Suriname has suddenly come into the international limelight as its government hands out logging and mining concessions in the rainforest interior to foreign companies. Local communities, outraged at having been excluded from negotiations about their land, have declared regional autonomy, with armed state police already guarding mines and shooting local people who are trying to reach their farms and forests. Suriname developed as a Dutch colony, exporting mainly sugar. However, the plantation economy has given way to bauxite mining and alumina production, of strategic importance to US and European war economies. Independent since 1975, the country's economy is dominated by two mining giants and remains dependent on Dutch development aid. Political parties are reliant on special interest patronage networks based on racial divisions. Attempts to break its economic dependency have led Suriname to civil war, economic ruin and withdrawal of aid. Desperate for cash, the government is now selling off the forest and mineral resources to foreign companies, undermining the people's sources of livelihood and food, and ruining the land. This is a comprehensive analysis of the background to the crisis and the present state of affairs of forest politics in Suriname. The author's detailed recommendations are directed towards the survival of the forest people, and the need to freeze timber concessions until the mechanisms to monitor, regulate and collect revenue from existing concessions for mining and road building have been improved.