The Eco Lodge at Surama is the visitor's gateway to the idyllic Pakaraima Mountains and Burro Burro River bordering the village. This part of Guyana features some of the most impressive examples of thriving rainforest ecology to be found anywhere on earth. The abundant flora and fauna is masterfully curated by local residents who convey a compellingly intimate fluency with nature through hikes, river canoe expeditions, and visits to community schools, centers, and traditional events.
The Eco Lodge—plus tours in and around Surama—are managed and operated solely by the Makushi. More than 70 people are employed either directly as hospitality staff, guides, cooks, artisans and drivers…or indirectly as farmers, hunters, fishermen, and construction and maintenance workers. Roughly 60% of the community’s income is now sustainably generated through tourism-related activities.
Apart from direct employment from eco-tourism, the community also benefits from economic activity derived from products and services that support Surama's tourism micro-industry, with profits feeding village investments in non-tourism and microlending projects. Meaningful opportunities for employment at home have significantly reduced incentives for men to abandon their homes to mine or cut timber in other parts of Guyana. This is a sparsely-populated country (larger than Idaho but with fewer people than the city of San Francisco) so economic opportunities are, indeed, rare.
Surama demonstrates a conscious effort to preserve an intimate, authentic, and (in every sense of the word) familiar experience for visitors. The Eco Lodge accommodates small groups only, reducing visitors' footprints not only in the wilderness but also in the classrooms, cassava factories, and village homes featured on a memorable visit to Surama.
Surama’s residents—especially the children—are personally invested in the preservation of the biological diversity that surrounds the village, leading visitors on hikes to nearby active Harpy Eagle nests, enforcing a ban on wildlife trapping, protecting groves of endangered bullet, letter, greenheart and waramaden trees, and introducing tourists and researchers to vast arrays of rainforest flora with time-honored medicinal properties.
