Non Timber Forest Products from Curuni area, Suriname

The Amazon Conservation Team – Suriname (ACT-S) has been working for over twenty years in Suriname on biocultural conservation and sustainable livelihoods projects within indigenous and tribal communities. Our organization has partnered with four indigenous communities in the far south of Suriname for many years (Kwamalasamutu, Tepu, Sipaliwini, and Apetina). ACT-S aims to advance sustainable, community-based income generation opportunities as a counterbalance to unsustainable activities such as gold-mining. Over years of research and collaboration, ACT-S has identified many additional resources with potential for NTFP valuechains that remain under-developed. To record and improve the information available on potential/current NTFPs and wildlife, ACT-S initiated a long-distance transect survey in collaboration with several communities in the region. The ACT-S NTFP expedition is set to take place in several phases, firstly (2017) from Kwamalasamutu to Curuni (or Kuruni) village and, secondly (2018), from Kwamalasamutu to Sipaliwini village. This dataset includes all plant species accountable for potential/current NTFPs concerning the first phase of the expedition, from Kwamalasamutu to Curuni which was conducted from 29th of May to 23rd of June 2017. During this expedition ACT-Suriname consultants and local staff conducted a river and land-based expedition along more than 230 kilometers of the remote Curuni River, between the villages of Kwamalasamutu and Curuni, in the southwestern corner of Suriname. The primary objectives of the expedition were: - Community Engagement. To form partnerships and assist local communities in conducting structured inventories of their own forests, based upon both traditional knowledge and basic scientific and survey methods. To further engage local communities with NTFPs – beginning with documentation of traditional knowledge, uses, and assessing the potential of NTFPs as market products; - ACT Local Staff Capacity-Building. To bolster the capacity of Amazon Conservation Rangers (ACRs) for conducting land use and resource surveys (including CMRV) through active training. Two rangers and two shamans from Kwamalasamutu and two new rangers from Curuni village participated in the expedition;  Documentation of NTFPs and Local Landcape Knowledge. To make a preliminary assessment of locations and abundances of locally useful plants, mammals, stingless bees, and marketable natural products. Also, to document sites of cultural, historical and/or ecological significance, record cultural stories about such sites, and update earlier ACT ethnographic maps.