“Welcome to Suriname – the most forested country in the world!” reads a billboard above the entrance of Suriname’s international airport terminal. Numerous signs remind travellers that more than 90% of its territory is covered by lush jungle, and the country takes pride in its environmental track record.
However, legal and illegal gold mining and expanding logging operations increasingly threaten this statistic, putting forests at risk and undermining the rights of tribal and Indigenous people to the land.
