Central Suriname Nature Reserve

The Central Suriname Nature Reserve is one of the largest protected areas in the Amazon basin, a 1.6-million-hectare block of primary rainforest that sits at the geological heart of the Guiana Shield, one of the oldest and most biodiverse regions of tropical rainforest on earth. The reserve is unreachable by road and most of it has never been systematically surveyed by scientists, meaning that new species of plants, insects and fish are still being described from fieldwork conducted from a handful of remote research camps within its boundaries, and the scientific literature on the reserve grows measurably each year as researchers return from expeditions with specimens that cannot be identified using existing taxonomic literature.

The landscape within the reserve is defined by the upper catchments of six major Surinamese rivers: the Coppename, Saramacca, Suriname, Marowijne, Lucie and Oost Rivers, all of which rise in the reserve and flow north to the Atlantic Ocean, making the reserve the hydrological engine of the entire country. The terrain is mostly undulating hills and low mountains rarely exceeding 1,200 metres, covered in a continuous canopy of tropical rainforest that varies in composition from lowland evergreen forest on the deeper soils to ridge-top forest on the laterite surfaces, with distinct floristic zones that reflect the underlying geology of the ancient Guiana Shield craton.

The biodiversity values of the reserve are extraordinary even by Guiana Shield standards, which are themselves exceptional by any global measure. The Guiana Shield region as a whole is estimated to contain approximately 15 percent of all plant species on earth despite covering less than 0.5 percent of the land surface, and Central Suriname, as the largest strictly protected block within that shield, is the most important single refuge for large mammal species that require vast contiguous forest areas, including the jaguar, the harpy eagle, the giant river otter and the giant anteater, all of which have been documented within the reserve by research expeditions.

Access for tourism is extremely limited by design: the reserve has no tourism infrastructure, no roads, no lodges accessible by car, and only a small number of organised expeditions per year, mostly departing from Paramaribo by light aircraft to one of two remote landing strips. This scarcity of access is precisely what makes the reserve globally significant — it has been protected not through park management alone but through geographic remotibility, a form of preservation that is increasingly rare in the Amazon era and that makes the reserve a benchmark for comparing the effectiveness of other protected area designations.

The Tafelberg (Table Mountain) at the southern edge of the reserve is a distinctive sandstone tabletop mountain rising to 1,026 metres above sea level and surrounded by forest that has never been logged. The mountain and its associated biota have been studied by botanists from the National Herbarium of the Netherlands and the results have confirmed species found nowhere else on earth, reinforcing the global conservation significance of the reserve as a whole. The mountain's isolation within the reserve means that it has functioned as an evolutionary island, producing endemic species that occur nowhere else, making it one of the most scientifically interesting sites in the entire Guiana Shield region.

Central Suriname Nature Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and protects one of the five largest blocks of pristine tropical rainforest remaining on earth, a resource of irreplaceable global value.

The reserve is the primary habitat for large mammals including jaguar, harpy eagle and giant river otter that require contiguous primary forest at a scale found almost nowhere else in the Americas.

New species of plants, fish and insects are still being formally described from the reserve, making it one of the most scientifically productive wilderness areas remaining in the world.