Co-creating a biocultural monitoring system for the Wayana community in Southeastern Suriname

The Wayana are a Carib-related Indigenous people who reside in an extensive area in the south-eastern part of the Guiana highlands in South America, a region divided between Brazil, Suriname, and French Guiana. In Suriname, the Wayana live in a number of villages found along the Lawa, the Litani, the Oelemari and the upper Tapanahony rivers [an area spanning approximately 2.4 million hectares of primary forest]. Until recently, the Wayana were able to live peacefully in their lands in Suriname without any external pressure or influence. However, since about the turn of the 21st century, the Wayana have been contending with an increasing amount of small-scale, alluvial gold mining taking place in and around their lands. Suriname is the only country in South America that does not yet recognize Indigenous land rights, and so the Wayana are left powerless to stop concessions from being given out. Stichting Mulokot is a community-based organization that seeks to demarcate Wayana territory and have it be legally recognized, monitor threats and encroachments, and establish a biocultural monitoring system that enables them to monitor wellbeing of territory and the community from a Wayana Indigenous worldview.