Surama's Greenheart

In the jungles of Surama, scores of majestic greenheart trees are rooted deep and stand barred from the reach of the chainsaw, but they would not have existed were it not for the Macushi village people who dare to be part of the "green" revolution.

About three miles into the village from where it is forbidden to harvest the greenheart trees, Eldrin Delon, an Amerindian Macushi youth, strolls to school with "Baby Yakombee," a Puma that would have otherwise been slaughtered and put on the table for food. The once hunted wild cat is no longer game.

And in the schoolyard in the center of the village Jean Allicock uses her Sunday afternoons to teach the little children traditions of the Macushi way of life, including dances like the Parishara.

For centuries the Amerindians of Guyana have survived by making use of the natural environment.

Today, the people of Surama are demonstrating that while the jungle and savannah are still sources of food, employing conservation methods means their continued existence and passing a rich legacy on for generations to come.

Surama, is located a 30-minutes land-rover ride away from Annai, the central administrative district of the communities of the North Rupununi, itself some 420 kilometres from the capital Georgetown.

The village of 42 families is as beautiful as the efforts of the villagers to keep their community intact through tourism, offering visitors an awe-inspiring insight into the jungle and savannah, its wildlife, and their primeval Macushi culture.

"The finest park that England boasts falls short of this delightful scene." This is how Englishman Charles Waterton described the village writing in "Wanderings in South America" after his stumble upon Surama in 1812.

Today, Surama, with its thatched roof cottage houses, sits in a basin circled by the foothills of the imposing Pakaraima Mountains, remaining true to Waterton's idyll portrayal.

It is bewildering to determine whether is alarming or admirable that trees seem to be encroaching upon the dwelling area of the village!

Community Tourism

Modern day Surama had its beginning a mere 35 years ago, and just about 10 years after it offered to take care of some college students from Iowa, USA, the village today has emerged as a model for community tourism in Guyana with its conservation efforts drawing considerable attention.

Sydney Allicock, a one time Toashao, or village leader, related that when the two groups of students visited in 1996, they asked if the village could prepare meals for them and could find places for them to sleepover.

The humble people of Surama agreed, not expecting to be paid for their hospitality, but they were.

"You mean you're paying us?" Sydney remembered the villagers saying, surprised.

"They (the visitors) loved the river (Burro Burro) and the forests. They looked at fungi, animals and insects. They loved the jungle walks," he added.

From the two trips of the Iowa students, the community had enough money to set up a guest house.

"We didn't know how to make a guest house. When the visitors came we had them guessing," Sydney said, laughing.

He now manages the eco-tourism initiative of Surama.

Currently the community is engaged in an ambitious programme to find accommodation for its increasing number of visitors.

The community is involved in the imaginative task of building a central accommodation facilities area resembling the paw of a jaguar set atop a hill with a lustrous mountain view just off the Burro Burro river where giant Otters play.

The lodges, nine of them in all, are being named after the remaining nine Amerindian tribes found in Guyana.

Four self-contained lodges surround a sizeable main building with a bar, library, dining room and more.

An aerial view allows you to see it as a jaguar's paw. The other five lodges will be built a bit off so as not to "spoil" the Jaguar look, Sydney said.

The project is being financed from a revolving fund set up by the community and through a loan from the North Rupununi District Development Board.

The community only pays its skilled workers, with all other work being done by the villagers voluntarily.

Every Monday villagers "volunteer" to work as a village rule and anyone who fails to show up without a reasonable excuse has to pay a fine of $500!

Four of the eco lodges have already been built along with the main building. The other five eco-lodges should be completed by the end of 2006.

The community is now part of a consortium managing the canopy walkway in the Iwokrama forest on behalf of the Iwokrama International Center for Rainforest Conservation and Development.

The others involved are the Rockview Lodge of Annai tour and tour operator Wilderness Explorer.

The 154-metre-long Iwokrama canopy walkway was commissioned in late 2003, consisting of three aluminium platforms and five suspension bridges, the first of its kind in the Caribbean and the Guiana Shield.

The walkway gives visitors a new view of the mid and upper canopy of the forest and allows wildlife to be relatively free from human intrusion.

The forest around the walkway contains some important flora and fauna. Among these are endangered and protected species such as the jaguar, the bullet wood tree, greenheart and the waramaden (endemic in Guyana only to the Iwokrama Forest).

Terri Obrien, the General Manager of Wilderness Explorers, said all three partners are intimately involved in the project.

"Yes, we do good business. The walkway is like a resort," she said.

Conservation

In the Surama jungle, the community has adopted a greenheart conservation project.

The greenheart timber tree is prized worldwide for among other things marine construction and hydraulic works because of is resistance to decay and termites.

The group of greeheart trees in the Surama jungle was considered ideal to build a bridge, but the community, which recognized the medicinal value of the trees, prevented this from happening.

According to Gary Sway, a tour guide with the Surama community, the seed from the greenheart tree is scraped, soaked and made into a drink, which when consumed is an effective contraceptive method, used by Surama women.

Sydney told Guyana Chronicle that he has had firsthand experience that the same drink prevents malaria, a mosquito borne disease incidental to villages in Guyana's interior.

In 1997, the community began its own experiment with greenheart hoping to increase the population.

By using the seeds, the community has planted numerous trees among the 32 full grown, hoping that they would grow and be preserved for the use of the community.

However, the greenheart is not the only tree being saved by Surama.

The Letter tree (also referred to as Leper and Leopard) is also being closely monitored because it is now fast disappearing.

The tree is common along the Burro Burro river, and has in the past been cut down indiscriminately for various uses, including making bows and arrows used for fishing.

In addition, because of its decorative and ornamental properties, it is also used in craft making.

When two German students that visited Surama wanted to give back to the community by funding a project, Gary, the tour guide mentioned earlier, who was then President of the Surama Wildlife Club, suggested a monitoring project for the Letter wood tree.

Under the Pyraye project, Sydney explained, the Letter wood tree is being studied, and if used sustainably could be a viable commercial enterprise.

'We would like it to be another conservation project. Because you can find Tapirs, Capybara, Howler monkeys and so on. Now if we continue cutting them down, all of that would be lost," Sydney pointed out.

The youngsters of Surama play a big part in this project and are paid to monitor the harvesting of the trees.

At the time of writing, three of the logs were being prepared for shipment to Germany, where scientific tests would be done.

"We are really excited about this project. From what we hear, the Germans themselves are excited about this wood," Sydney said.

The project grew out of interest shown by German university students Kai Andresch and Robert Spriessler.

Three and a half years ago they came to Guyana looking for a place and subject to complete their Masters programme.

Ben J.H. ter Welle, the German team leader of the just concluded Guyana-Germany Natural Resources Project suggested Surama.

When the two students saw the Letter wood, they were astounded at its beauty and decided that their thesis was going to focus on the dynamics of forestry. Why?

Ben ter Welle told Guyana Chronicle that supposedly only one in 10 of the Letter wood tree possesses "the heart" or the central part of the log, with the special decorative properties.

"This is because a fungus triggers the colouration of the inner part of the tree," he explained.

When the German students returned with one of the pieces to Germany, others expressed interest and suggested that it could be bought at high prices.

And so they returned to Surama with the idea.

"If you can cut down one tree and get the same money or more than what you would get by cutting down three, well then why cut down the other two", Ben ter Welle reasoned.

'Prior to now, anybody would go and cut down the trees. Who benefits? Not the community, only individuals and you have a lot of wastage," added Sydney.

The Pyraye project is being funded by the foundation Kanada-Amazonas Initiative E.V.

Wood fuels excitement

The youngsters of Surama are getting more opportunities to manage their area and the wildlife around.

A German television group is currently in the village, filming for a documentary on Guyana's wild animals.

Their focus includes the green Anancondas.

In Surama, a stone's throw away from the school, a small area has become a zoo for animals that are being used for the filming.

Leon Bento, 16, is not afraid of the giant Anancondas - two, measuring 22 feet each - and was happy to open up their cage and meddle around with the creatures caught in the Burro Burro River.

"This is normal for me," he chuckles, as he sees through my fright coming that close to the monsters.

Leon and about nine others manage the Surama zoo, which includes giant river Tortoises, Capybaras, an Ocelot, Macaws, Deers, Monkeys and more.

Less than a decade ago, Sydney points out, these animals would have been slaughtered and eaten.

But with projects like these, he said the youths are developing a deeper love for the animals and the "need" not to hunt them.

"When people come here to study the trees and the animals, our youths are getting motivation to do better things in life", Sydney related.

"Now you hear of them wanting to become scientists," he added.

"So for us this is not about money. This is about preserving our way of life which has always included our dependence on the jungle and its wild.

With the help of many people, we are being helped to appreciate more our natural resources," he said.

"Before, when you see a deer walking across the open, the first thing you think is: shoot and eat. Now that is not the case," Sydney said.

He fondly refers to Surama's efforts as part of the "green revolution."

With the conservation efforts afoot, villagers are being encouraged to go into agriculture as they develop alternative sources of food to the animals.

Reviving Macushi culture

Surama's pioneering efforts in the field of tourism also includes giving visitors a taste of the ancient Macushi culture.

Loreen Allicock, who has been teaching at the Surama school since 1997, is one of the Macushi language teachers in the village.

Her grandmother never spoke English, only Macushi.

The Macushi teaching classes in Surama are part of a wider programme carried out in the communities of the North Rupununi.

The programme, now being managed by the Macushi Research Unit at Annai, has received funding from the Canadian Organisation for Development and Education, and the Canadian International Development Agency, with support from Iwokrama.

The Macushi Language Programme grew out of a 16-month project in 1995-6 that was held to catalogue Macushi Ethnobotany using the women from eight North Rupununi villages.

Iwokrama funded this initiative, through a Global Environment Facility grant.

As a result of this initiative the Macushi Research Unit was formed to especially promote Macushi teaching programmes in schools.

Loreen, who benefited from her mother's knowledge of the Macushi language, is now happy to be passing on her knowledge to the younger generation.

She said that the Macushi people can be described as a people with no language.

She explains that the people cannot speak Macushi fluently and the same goes for English, as they have an imperfect knowledge of this too.

With the school curriculum being in English, and with English spoken in the homes, she saw the Macushi language as being almost lost.

However, she is happy to be seeing some revival of sorts.

"The Macushi language is being taught in our school as part of classroom work and the children are enjoying the classes. When they go home, they would quiz their parents," Loreen said, as she showed me helpful charts posted around the classroom.

But in Surama, not only is the Macushi language being revived, so is the Macushi way of life, including its songs and dances.

Jean Allicock is the woman at the helm of the project in Surama.

She learnt from her mother the traditional Macushi songs and dances and she is now passing that on to the children of the community.

"I grew up traditionally. My mother cannot speak much English. So everything for me was Macushi," she said.

"I guess you could say I know the old time way of life," she joked.

At first, Jean taught classes voluntarily, but now with the importance of Surama's growing tourism drive, she is being paid a stipend.

The children are taught to sing like a Macushi and to dance like a Macushi.

She tried to show me the moves of the Parishara dance but I'm a terrible dancer!

For Jean, her teaching is a means of keeping her tradition alive to her as well.

"I love being a Macushi. I don't want to forget my culture and I don't want the children to live not knowing where they came from," Jean said. "To be frank, the children don't know our way of life," she pointed out.

And so, with her Sunday afternoon classes, Jean continues her challenge of getting the children "back to basics."

The enterprising spirit of Surama

Indira Anandjit, the Executive Director of the Guyana Tourism Authority said a number of Amerindian communities in the interior are also looking at venturing into tourism and said it would be useful if they could copy Surama in going forward with their ideas.

"We're very proud of what Surama is doing and we would like to use Surama as a model in community tourism," she said.

"The mere fact that they are such a small and young community and are managing their initiatives so well speaks volumes about their spirit," she added.

Anandjit said what she finds admirable is that the community is mindful that people don't crowd the community so that they loose "the authenticity" of what they have.

"Sydney has said that they don't want visitors flocking to the community, and this is important if they want to keep the product intact because what they are doing now is absolutely fantastic and it would be even more so if they can maintain this," she said.

As they say in Macushi tongue Ko'nanni. Oh, that means goodbye.