by Ms. Lilian Monsels-Thompson

Suriname is situated on the north-east coast of South America. It is bounded on the North by the Atlantic Ocean, on the East by French-Guyana, on the South by Brazil and on the West by Guyana. The total main land area measures about 164.000 sq. km. Suriname has a humid tropical climate, 80% of the land is covered by the tropical rain forest. About 90% of the country is uninhabited.

There are six ecological zones, two of which are in the Ocean Basin system and four in the main land system, which includes the coastal plain. The estuarine zone of these plain clay flats is covered with mangrove forest, coastal lagoons, the savannah Belt and the Residual Uplands covering about 80% of the land surface. This area is part of the Precambrian Shield, with hills and mountains up to 1.230m above sea level.

About 70% of the approximate 400.000 inhabitants are concentrated in and around the capital city of Paramaribo, another 25% lives in small towns along the roads and rivers of the coastal plain, the remaining 5% (mostly maroons and native Amerindians ) mainly lives in small villages along the S-N running bigger rivers.This is your background for the POPs information.

In Suriname the use of products in which POPs and PCB are processed is in many sectors such as agriculture, mining and the processing industry. Large scale rice farming especially in the Western coastal plain requires the input of high amounts of pesticides usually applied from airplanes. During spraying pesticides drift over long distances into rivers and neighbouring estuarine areas. Also contaminated irrigation water is drained into rivers and coastal swamps. Residues of pesticides were found in mammals, birds, caimans and fish. The use of persistent pesticides should not the allowed. However the Suriname pesticide law and the institutions for pesticide monitoring and control are not operational. The use of pesticides besides being harmful to the human health, will be also harmful to the estuary fishing activities, to aquaculture and vulnerable ecosystems and species in the estuarine area.

Small-scale gold mining is stimulated by the government to improve the economy, for this purpose gold concessions in the Guyana Shield-greenstone belt are granted. The problem with small scale goldmining in Suriname is that mercury is used in the exploitation of this mineral. As it fixes to the sediments and to suspended soils, it is predictable that soon or later mercury will arrive in the lower regions of the rivers. It is known that mercury is harmful to human health, to vulnerable ecosystems and species in the estuarine area.

The last 5 years we experienced a gold rush to these upper river areas. The activities form the most significant sources of cash income for Maroons and an increasing larger number of Amerindians men. Increasing numbers of Brazilians legal and illegal are also immigrating to the areas. Resurgence of malaria was extensive in the last 3 years ( was linked to this migration).

To minimize populations of river water with mercury and land suspended soils it was recommended to the government to:

• limit granting small-scale gold exploitation concessions in the drainage basins of two rivers.
• to request Environmental impact studies for new gold mines and if granted, activities should be monitored.
• to stimulate or legally enforce gold extraction by gravity methods.
• to legally enforce the use of retorts to retrieve mercury from amalgam.
• finalize the new concept mining act for approval by The National Assembly.

Four exploitation bore holes have been driven in the shallow sea zone by the State Oil Company. The results so far are encouraging and the company is planning to continue exploration in this zone. On shore exploitation has been there for fifteen years.

Accidents with oil tankers at sea failures of oil installations may cause major oil spills. In case of an oil spill the oil spill contingency plan of the State Oil Company, which is developed from minor spills, will come into operation. Some of the distributors of international Oil Companies and the Suriname Aluminium Company (which is multi-national) have their oil spill contingency Plans.

For major oil spills in 1976 Suriname entered the 1959 "Convention on the High Seas" and in 1969 the International Convention relating to Intervention on the High Seas in cases of Oil Pollution's Causalities.

Governments in the wider Caribbean have been approached by private enterprises for getting permits to dump or incinerate hazardous waste materials in their territorial water. Especially deep ocean trenches are favourite. As far as traceable, Suriname has never been approached by private enterprises to get permit to dump or incinerate hazardous waste materials in the territorial waters. Dumping of hazardous waste by vessels of international registry has never been reported. Suriname is producing minor quantities of toxic material.

In 1980 Suriname entered the 1972 London Dumping Convention, followed in 1988 by entering the 1973/1978 International Convention for Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL). In 1993, the wider Caribbean Region was designed as a "special area" under MARPOL with this designation, strict controlling of discharge of garbage from ships will become applicable in the wider Caribbean Region.

Unfortunately there are no official practices of PCB detection nor monitoring of POPs. It is known that larger companies, due to their international obligations, have restrictions in handling pollutants. Smaller companies often lack the expertise or the capabilities to environment-friendly processing or handling while government institutions have not been able to confirm good practice. There is informal information of flushing PCBs with a limited content in gear oil in fuels. In practices or garages and individual automobile owners, gear oil is wasted in soil along roads and yards.

Small open fires form a common means of waste removal in Suriname resulting from the deteriorating public waste disposal service since the 1980's. The garbage contains a rather high amount of plastics and fires are likely to contaminate the air with dioxins. The number of cars has increased considerably during the last decade, the majority of these cars are old. Import of used cars has been common. Many cars do not have proper combustion, which contributes to the source of POPs in Paramaribo.

According to the 1992 Suriname Country Report to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, in Suriname (as in many other countries) there was a lack of overall national policy dealing with environmental management.

Since June last year, however, Suriname has a national framework that will allow the government to make better use of existing ongoing efforts and effectively develop new initiatives in the environment field. This framework consists of :

1. the environment council (within the President's office)

2. the National Institute for Environment and Development (NIMOS)

3. the line ministries

NIMOS consists of 6 offices. One of these is the office of Environmental Monitoring and Enforcement which provides the direction for civil enforcement activities related to air, land and water pollution and to waste, toxic substances and pesticides. This office will guard against the import of hazardous waste and the illegal export of plants and animals.