Government officials of Suriname and Brazil are conducting negotiations to build a road to directly link their nations. Suriname and Brazil are currently the only two South American nations not directly connected by land. At the present moment, the countries are connected by land, either via Guyana in the west (Boa Vista - Lethem - Georgetown - Nieuw Nickerie) or via French Guyana in the east (Oiapoque - Cayenne - Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni - Albina).

The masterplan is to connect Paramaribo via Pokigron, in Southeastern Suriname, via the Tumucumaque National Park and Pedra Branca do Amapari, located at the existing highway BR-210, to Macapá, the capital of the Brazilian State of Amapá. The 625-km long Tumucumaque Park, which covers 3'867'000 hectares, is not only Brazil's largest protected area but also the world's largest protected continuous piece of pristine rain forest.

Interest to build a Trans-Amazon highway is coming from both sides of the border. Since the election of President Desi Bouterse earlier this year, the Brazilian government has been eager to advance economic cooperation. In seminar recently held in Paramaribo's Torarica Hotel, Brazil’s Ambassador to Suriname, José Luiz Machado e Costa, has offered cooperation in strategic areas such as infrastructure, energy, education and announced incentives for small-to-medium size companies. Brazil's Instituto de Pesquisa Rodoviária (IPR), Departamento Nacional de Infraestrutura de Transportes (DNIT), the Institutional Security's Group of Brazil's Republic Presidency (GSI) and the Superintendency of the Tax Free Zone of Manaus (Suframa) are all currently engaging in feasibility studies.

Suriname's President Desi Bouterse and his Mega Combination, which holds 23 out of 51 seats in parliament, have often highlighted the multiple benefits of a direct link to its southern neighbor during the presidential campaign. First and foremost, there are important economic benefits to be made. A highway would open up a vast area to commerce and other economic activities. The Precambrian rocks of the Guyana Shield hold huge proven deposits of diamonds, gold, silver and platinum. In addition, it holds huge reserves of industrial minerals such as bauxite, copper, iron ore, manganese, tin and zinc.

Its major bounty, nevertheless, might well reside in less well-known minerals such as beryllium, kaolin, nobium, tantalum, titanium and zirconium, which are essential for applications in modern aerospace, automobiles, computers and oil and gas drilling equipment. All these natural deposits belong to the Surinamese government.  It is no coincidence that the World Bank recently ranked Suriname as among the 17 potentially richest countries.

Under Suriname's current legislation, only around 16% of forest lands is earmarked and managed as protected areas, including Multiple Use Management Areas, nature reserves and national parks. In addition, around 15% of national forest coverage is reserved for commercial exploitation, such as forest logging, hydropower and mining concessions. Some 55% of its forest lands, however, mostly located in the south, has not a special allocation yet. The Bouterse government is eager to exploit these riches.

A second reason for establishing a direct link is political. As of 2011, Suriname will no longer receive Dutch development aid. When Suriname gained its independence in 1975, the Netherlands pledged the sum of 3.5 billion Dutch guilders as development aid. This program has now come to an end. Some might deplore the termination, but the new government is not regretting the move. According to Bouterse’s political assistant, Winston Lackin, Suriname will only benefit from cutting off aid ties with its former colonial power. According to Lackin, Dutch development aid has not delivered on its promises, "it has only perpetuated dependency." Suriname's discontent on how the Dutch booted Suriname into independence still runs deep.

Like most other South American nations, Suriname will increasingly look at Brazil and China for trade ties. Instead of continuing entertaining rocky relations with its former colonial master, Suriname has more to gain from bilateral negotiations with these two rising powers. There is no doubt that Brazil and China are eager to exploit opportunities and capitalize on Suriname's rocky diplomatic relationship with the Dutch. Also France is poised to take advantage as its overseas territory, French Guyana, is well-positioned to become Suriname's main commercial entry point into the European Union.

A third reason is related to Suriname's population. The Bouterse government argues that the lack of a land connection to southern Suriname represents a significant barrier to migration to the central and southern part of the country. Around 95 percent of its relatively small population of less than half a million live in the Coastal Plains and hardly anybody ever visits its interior. Suriname has one of the lowest population density in the world, only 3 people per square kilometer. There are no major roads into the jungle and it is one the most densely covered countries with pristine rainforests on the face of the universe.

A more profound assessment, however, makes the paving of a direct link between Suriname and Brazil less obvious or attractive. Are Suriname's and Brazil's interests really served by carving a tarred road through virgin rain forest territory? Does Suriname's continental destiny hinge on the road’s asphalting, as its recently reelected President Desi Bouterse makes us believe? Linking the two nations would have huge repercussions for the northeastern part of the Amazon basin and Guyana Shield, not only environmentally, but also politically and socially.

Logistical Unnecessary

Even from a strict logistical viewpoint, many question marks ought to be raised. The geographical area is sparsely inhabited. The Atlantic Ocean is still relatively close, which makes a highway unnecessary for cargo or freight. Moreover, Suriname's existing East-West Highway is not used to its full potential and capacity with passengers suffering assaults and harassment. There are not even bridges crossing the Courantyne River to Guyana and Marouini River to French Guyana. Logistical disadvantages to engage in a North-South Highway seem to outpace economic benefits by a wide margin.

Short-Term Economic Gain

Although there are many proven reserves of natural resources in the areas surrounding the proposed highway, there is no evidence that the extraction enhances overall prosperity. Historical evidence suggests that the endowment of natural assets for a given country has only positive social side-effects if the prevailing levels of governance and law enforcement are solid. In the case of Suriname, there is no reason to assume that the private gains will be larger than the overall social losses. A middle ground ought to be found between on the one extreme, a long period of neglect, and at the opposite end, a reckless gold rush. A major challenge for Suriname is how to deal with the available riches and avoid the natural resources curse.

The most likely scenario is that Chinese business groups will continue to dominate the market for Amazonian products. Commodities are characterized by raw natural resources rather than value-added manufactured goods. Under this business-as-usual scenario, the Amazon will continue to be subject to market fluctuations, perpetuating the boom-and-bust cycles, which is a typical feature of the region ever since it was first discovered by overseas European pirates.

Devastating Environmental Impact

Any highway linking the two nations would cross a delicate ecosystem, to date one of the best preserved virgin rain forest territories in the world, a biodiversity hotspot. Suriname is situated on the Guyana shield, a massive granitic formation of the pre-Cambrian era, near the northern terminus of the world’s largest continuous area of unspoiled, uninterrupted tropical rainforest. Suriname totals 146’101 square kilometers, of which still nearly 90 percent is covered by pristine rainforests, with a rate of destruction of under 0.1% annually. By bringing tar to the forest, this dynamic would change.

It is worth reiterating the impressive numbers of Suriname. According to a recent studyof Conservation International, Suriname has 200 species of mammals, 674 species of birds, 152 species of reptiles, 99 species of amphibians, and 790 species of fishes. As most of its rivers flow directly into the Atlantic Ocean and are not part of the Amazon or Orinoco drainages, Suriname’s associated fauna is mostly endemic and has therefore huge intrinsic value. Its dense rainforests still host animals that are increasingly threatened at the other edges of the Amazon, including the Giant River Otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), Lowland Tapir (Tapirus terrestris), Giant Armadillo (Priodontes maximus), American Manatee (Trichechus manatus) and the Blue Poison Frog (Dendrobates azureus).

Paving a highway across these fragile areas, resulting from an intentional or conscious choice of governments and corporations, would inflict permanent damage. By cutting an substantial area, not only carbon would be released into the atmosphere, the affected areas would also no longer absorb carbon in the future. Critics might say that the area affected in southern Suriname and northern Amapá and Pará is relatively small. However, the areas form an integral part of a wider mosaic which ought to maintain its natural equilibrium.

Secondly, the water cycle would be negatively affected. The Amazon basin is the largest freshwater hydrological system on the face of the universe, containing the world's largest underground aquifer. Southern Suriname is located at a strategic area of the Amazon, where the evapotranspiration cycle, driven by Atlantic winds, starts. Less trees means less cloud formation, which in return causes less rain and more fires. By interrupting or interfering with the Amazon water cycle, remote agriculture areas as far away as Texas, the Chaco and the Rio Plata basin will be affected. Scientists already warn that the tipping point for causing major irrevocable changes in the Amazon basin is not far away, which would dry out the rain forest and turn it into grassland savannahs.

Inauspicious Historical Precedents

Although historical experience is a relatively poor predictor of future behavior, some important lessons can be drawn from Suriname's track record. The biggest human incursion in the rainforest occurred in the 1960s, with the completion of a dam in the Suriname River at Afobakka to fuel aluminum smelters of Suralco/Alcoa. This resulted in the formation of the hydroelectric reservoir Lake Brokopondo. This artificial lake destroyed 1'560 square kilometres of pristine rainforest.

In the 1990s, several gold mining companies made incursions into Suriname, equally causing loss of rainforest and, worse, mercury pollution. The area around the Bakhuis Mountains has become notoriously polluted. Issues concerning mining regulations are increasingly making headlines in the parliament and newspapers. During the presidential campaign, Bouterse opposed a proposed terms of an investment by Newmont Mining, arguing that it amounts to exchanging the country’s natural bounty for a mere “apple and an egg.”

Brazil's track record is even more worrisome. In South America's largest nation, there is a direct correlation between highway corridors in pristine rainforests and rising wildfires, more deforestation, forest fragmentation, species extinction and increasing migration flows. Asphalt is historically one of the worst villains of deforestation. Experience learns that transnational highways increase the density of secondary roads. Deforestation will lead to land speculation and colonization along a grid of primary and secondary roads, leading to a fishbone pattern. The human dimension of expanding highway corridors is moreover historically linked to increasing incidence of alcoholism, prostitution and the spreading of contagious diseases.

The paving of a Paramaribo - Belém corridor would facilitate human migration from the so-called Arc of Deforestation in the Brazilian States of Mato Grosso and Tocantins to new frontiers in the so-called Calha Norte (States of Pará and Amapá). The paving would provide additional impetus for appropriation of public land by both small squatters and by grileiros (large-scale illegal claimants), at both ends of the border of Suriname and Brazil. Local authorities will have a huge responsibility to mitigate the impact of bringing asphalt to the forest.

Jeopardizing Indigenous Communities

The land area which nowadays forms the nation of Suriname historically belongs to a wide variety of indigenous peoples. The Arawaks are considered to be its first inhabitants. Later on, other indigenous peoples arrived such as the Akurio, Caribs, Trió,Wayarekule, Warrau and Wayana. The relatively small remaining Amerindian population posses an intimate and invaluable knowledge of foods, fibers, medicines, and other useful forest plants.

All across the Americas, indigenous communities have not only historically been the best curators of the continent’s natural assets, they have also been the best custodians of their intrinsic value. Indigenous communities have the rain forest as their natural habitat, which is intrinsically part of their cosmovision and economic survival. It is unlikely that the centuries-old stewards of the Amazon would welcome road asphalt into their areas.

As the proposed Trans-Amazon highway would cross indigenous territories, it is a precondition to map, define and secure forest tenure rights of Maroon and indigenous communities. These communities ought to be treated as a special class of stakeholders, who are in fact rights-holders under both national and international law.

Plundering and Illegal Occupation

A major preoccupation of the Surinamese government, which is widely shared by its population, is how to deal with illegal Brazilians, which are increasingly invading central and southern parts of the country in their reckless quest for natural resources. After being expelled from the gold mines in the Brazilian State of Pará (the infamous Serra Pelada open-pit mine) in the 1990s and from French Guyana in the early 2000s, Brazilian gold-seekers, the so-called garimpeiros, are increasingly crossing the Litani and the Maroni Rivers into Suriname.

Illegal trespassing is increasingly causing frictions and clashes. In December 2009, a dispute between Brazilian gold prospectors and a local Maroon community in Albina, a town of 5’000 people located on the border with French Guyana, ended up in a bloody riot in which a shopping mall was looted and dozens of innocent citizens were killed. The Albina riot does not bode well for the future. Brazilian garimpeiros are notoriously bad stewards of the environment as they pollute river streams. Mercury and cyanide is used to leach the mineral gold from the bulk ore, with devastating health consequences for downstream Maroon and indigenous communities, including neurological birth defects and leukemia.

For the first time in Suriname's young history, the contentious garimpeiros issue dominated Suriname's presidential election campaign earlier this year. Measures to enforce environmental laws against illegal garimpeiros are long overdue.

Facilitating Illegal Trafficking

The paving of a direct link between Suriname and Brazil is likely to increase illegal trafficking between the two countries, both notorious for weak law enforcement. Suriname is often accused for facilitating drug trafficking and for providing trans-shipment for arms-for-drugs dealing. Suriname is also increasingly being used as a transit point between South America and Europe for human trafficking. In many cases, Brazil is the main intermediary (drugs), manufacturer (arms) or provider (prostitution) for these commodities or illicit trades.

According to a recent report of the US State Department Trafficking in Persons Report, "Suriname is a destination and transit country for men, women, and children from the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Guyana, Colombia, Haiti, Indonesia, Vietnam, and China trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor." It moreover argues that "Suriname is also a source country for women and children trafficked within the country for sexual exploitation and forced labor, as well as women trafficked transnationally for forced labor."

The same dreadful conclusion was drawn at a conference on human trafficking organized by the Suriname Bishop's Conference, under guidance of Bishop Wilhelmus de Bekker, which was held in Paramaribo in November 2010. In the final statement of the conference, the Surinamese delegation committed itself to a more proactive approach to enforcing national and international laws, and improvement of its border control mechanisms.

Law enforcement is Suriname's Achilles heel. The Inter-American Children's Institute argues in a recent study that Suriname's main obstacles reside in "limited institutional capacity both on government and non-governmental organization’s level; lack of specialized and trained personnel, lack of community awareness and lack of appropriated legislation." The paving of a Trans-Amazon highway would only put additional pressure on the authorities on both sides of the border.

Unresolved Disputed Areas

Suriname has a long-running conflict with both its eastern and western neighbors involving land claims. French Guyana is claiming the area between Litani and the Maroni Rivers. At its western front, Suriname claims a triangle of land along the Kutari River in a historic dispute over the headwaters of the Courantyne River.

Guyana is currently seeking arbitration of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in order to resolve the issue. It is unlikely that a highway could cross these disputed areas. Only 15 kilometers of the borderline between Brazil and Suriname is not crossing indigenous territory or environmentally protected areas.

The remaining border territory on the Brazilian side belongs to Tumucumaque Park, which covers almost the size of Switzerland. The park is famous for several endemic species, especially fish and aquatic birds, but also for its jaguars, sloths and freshwater turtles. The park is also home for three indigenous peoples. Besides the Tumucumaque, it is home to the Waiapi and the Rio Paru d’Oeste.

There is no doubt that the paving of a highway, regardless of the exact route, would undoubtedly cross a variety of disputed or restricted areas, which in turn will accelerate loss of biodiversity, cause legal disputes and endless lawsuits.

Controversial Multilateral and Corporate Financing

Business links between Suriname and Brazil are already sharply on the rise due to the paving of a road over the Oiapoque River, which links the northeastern edge of Brazil in the State of Amapá with French Guyana. The rehabilitation of Macapá - Cayenne Highway, co-financed by the Inter-American Bank of Development, will also improve trade and transportation links between Paramaribo and Belém. The paving is part of the controversial Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America (IIRSA).

Private financial institutions and global investment banks won't be eager to provide financing as they are allergic to reputational damage and will have to comply with the Equator Principles. Construction companies, however, won't be depending on the mood and goodwill of international capital markets as financing will be readily available from public sources. Brazil’s National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES), under Brazil's new incoming developmentalist President Dilma Rousseff, will be interested in increasing infrastructure funding in the Amazon basin. Opaque Chinese investment vehicles will also be interested to participate.

The fact that most funding will come from public and not private sources makes the investment process less transparent and accountable. Brazilian and Chinese development lenders have a poor environmental record, enjoy weak governance and compliance structures and often turn a blind eye to civil unrest or protests. In general, multilateral discourse regarding the construction of highway corridors systematically overestimates the benefits and underestimates its impacts. The financing agencies, nevertheless, should be fully aware of the synergistic nature and negative side-effects of their investments.

Preliminary Conclusion

The most likely scenario is that the planning of a Trans-Amazon highway from Paramaribo to Belém will go forward, driven by the development vision of President Desi Bouterse and incoming Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. Both have a developmentalist agenda primarily motivated by short-term economic and financial gains, mostly disregarding or downplaying long-term negative impacts. Both presidents have clearly opted for a growth model in which the state assumes a predominant role in economic planning and execution. Their main argument is that there are no viable alternatives to a highway and that the region cannot be denied its right to development.

In my opinion, however, there are legitimate concerns that short-term economic advantages do not weigh up to a manifold of long-term negative consequences. By partially tarring the forest, Suriname has much more to lose than to gain. The debate should therefore shift and focus on alternatives to building a highway.

Toward Viable Alternatives

In the first place, the purpose of the highway, which is to facilitate transport in the region, including from factories in the far-away Manaus Free Trade Zone, would be better served by enhancing the already existing ports of Paramaribo, Macapá and Belém. French Guyana is investing millions of its euros into modernizing port facilities in Paramaribo and Macapá as its capital, as its capital Cayenne lacks a deep water port. There are no plausible economic arguments to justify a new highway.

In the second place, Suriname is well-positioned to monetize on carbon credits on avoided deforestation schemes. There are economic and financial arguments that the pristine forest is more valuable that the alternative use of the land. There is a need to raise awareness at the global level that sustainable forest management can equal or even surpass economic gains from deforestation. There are plenty opportunities in the area of sustainable forest management, including the creation of additional protected areas, ecotourism, sustainable timber and non-timber forest products extraction, payments for ecosystem services (PES) and forest carbon, reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). These mechanisms should be able to generate enough cash flows to sustain or compensate forest communities. Unfortunately, carbon sequestration and avoided deforestation projects have so far only been funded by the voluntary market.

At the moment, the monetary contribution of the forest sector to the public finances of Suriname is less that 3% of its Gross Domestic Product. The forest economy employs less than 4% of its population and exports derived from forest-related goods and services are less than 1% of the total national exports. Potential sustainable forest production and services ought to be much bigger. If the Amazon basin and Guyana Shield are global assets worth preserving, then it is only reasonable that the Surinamese stewards are being paid for their efforts.

Instead of financing a controversial highway, multilateral development agencies should rather focus on long-term strategies. For example, Suriname deserve priority assistance of new funding opportunities offered by the World Bank, such as the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and its Strategic Climate Fund (SCF). Unfortunately, these mechanisms are relatively small with insufficient pledges to seriously make a difference. At the present moment, there is a serious mismatch between the urgency of calls for sustainable forest management and the financial support available from these agencies. Moreover, international environmental organizations and multilateral development agencies so far have not been successful in creating effective market-based mechanisms to pay for ecosystem services.

A broader debate should also involve the latest developments in international law. The precautionary principle, for example, states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, then - in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful - the burden of roof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action. This principle of law implies that there is a huge social responsibility to protect the wider public from exposure to harm, when scientific investigation has found a plausible risk. There are good reasons to argue that in the case of the highway Brazilian and Surinamese federal authorities should make the application of the precautionary principle a statutory requirement.

A wider public discussion on the desirability of building a highway is a sine qua non. A major step toward solving an issue is usually realizing that there is something serious at stake. Not only politicians and corporate analysts, indigenous community leaders and policy think tanks, but also investigative journalists and bloggers, have an extraordinarily important mission to raise awareness of possible scenarios. Indifference and ignorance are the worst enemies of progress and development.

As local financial resources in Suriname are limited, corporate giving and strategic philanthropies should consider funding research and development. Suriname’s sole university, Anton de Kom University, has an excellent track record of research. The university deserves to be better equipped to study and monitor it own backyard.

Suriname is notoriously absent or underrepresented on the international environmental and diplomatic scene, mainly due to a lack of human resources. However, not only Suriname's diplomatic capacity is to blame. The proliferation of forest or climate change related public and private processes - from GEF, UNFCC, UNFF, COP, FAO-NFP to CBD and others - causes confusion and is detrimental for smaller nations such as Suriname. This is rather tragic as Suriname ought to be rewarded for protecting its carbon reservoirs, safeguarding its biodiversity sanctuary and for being a so-called high forest cover, low deforestation rate (HFLD) country. Action is warranted as a Paramaribo - Belém highway corridor could potentially become the grandest and most expensive of white elephants in the Amazon basin.


* Johannes van de Ven holds a Ph.D. in business ethics and moral theology of University of Louvain and studied development economics at PUC-Rio de Janeiro. As a former investment banker, he was involved in the privatization of mining company Companhia Vale do Rio Doce and participated in the Brazil Roundtable on Wall Street. As a development strategist, he advised Swiss Consulting Group and the United Kingdom Department for International Development on corporate responsibility strategies and microfinance policies in Brazil. More recently, he has conducted doctoral research on corporate rules of engagement in areas of social-environmental conflict and was a cross-reference for the UNDP Yasuni-ITT Trust Fund in Ecuador. As a moral theologian, he is a research associate of the University of Louvain’s Center for Economics and Ethics, and European Ethics Network. He publishes frequently on issues related to sustainable development and the Amazon, mostly available at www.johannesvandeven.blogspot.com.