Toronto author Andrew Westoll walks a line between the romantic idealism of his artist side and the pragmatism of his scientist half.
During his 2005 adventure in the small South American country of Suriname, home to the “largest undisturbed rainforest on earth,” one of the most profound questions Westoll struggled with was the value versus the dangers of tourism.
Could tourism help save this jewel of a jungle — with the capuchin monkeys that first lured him as a researcher, and the rare blue okopipi frog that became an obsession — from the onslaught of mining and forestry?
Westoll details his adventures and obsessions in the recently published book The Riverbones — Stumbling After Eden in the Jungles of Suriname (Emblem).
In the end, he concluded that eco-tourism — when it’s grounded in values rather than exploitation — is one of the few revenue options open to a country facing dire economic realities.
“I do encourage people to go but, please, research the hell out of it before you do,” Westoll said in an interview. “Eco-tourism in Suriname is still in its infancy. There might be 40 different providers in the capital city of Paramaribo but the difference between them is broad in terms of the ecological footprint they leave.”
A holiday that seems to be half-price might only deliver a 50 per cent experience, he says. Find an option that takes you into the jungle but leaves few traces or, if you simply want a getaway, identify a resort that’s environmentally enlightened and has an “intimate involvement with local people,” Westoll says.
The British traded Suriname to the Dutch in return for the island of Manhattan after the Anglo-Dutch War in 1667. Its wealth in the 20th century came from bauxite — the base aluminum ore — but in recent decades political upheaval and fiscal mismanagement have contributed to a virtually worthless currency.
Suriname needs revenues. Mining and forestry are the old-school answers but both mean slashed rainforest. Eco-tourism is one of the few solutions.
Westoll first went to Suriname in 2000 as a 23-year-old primatologist recently graduated from Queen’s University. The year spent in the Central Suriname Nature Reserve was both a great adventure and a psychologically demanding ordeal at the end of which Westoll admitted literature was more important to him than monkey statistics. He went to the University of British Columbia to study creative writing then immediately returned to Suriname to apply his skills — writing tourist brochures for Conservation International while jotting notes for The Riverbones.
Conservation International (CI) is one of the world’s most influential environmental NGOs.
Westoll writes: “The Central Suriname Nature Reserve was created in July 1998, after CI fought off Southeast Asian logging conglomerates and convinced the Surinamese government — with an initial donation of $1 million and the promise of further millions in trust — that the “existence value” of the jungle (the potential for ecotourism projects and pharmaceutical discovery) far outweigh its destruction value (timber revenues).”
The rainforests of Suriname are considered a part of upper Amazonia, which is still, after decades of both internal and international pressure, being logged at an alarming rate. That grim reality only makes the Suriname jungles more valuable.
The title of Westoll’s book is a reference to the skeletons of trees that were drowned — over 1,500 sq. km of pristine rainforest — after a huge reservoir was created to generate electricity for aluminum production in the early 1960s.
The decisions made now —by governments, industry, tourists — will determine whether the forests remain in leaf or meet a fate similar to the river bones.
Links:
Andrew Westoll: www.andrewwestoll.com
Central Suriname Nature Reserve: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1017
Conservation International: www.conservation.org
