Suriname’s Saamaka tribe turns to mapping and documenting in effort to protect the Amazon rainforest

TUTUBUKA, Suriname (AP) — Deep in Suriname’s Amazon rainforest, Navaldo Vola hacked through thick vegetation with a machete, leading a group of Saamaka men up a forested mountain in sweltering heat and swarms of horseflies.

Halfway up, they found a massive abandoned excavator fitted with an attachment designed to tear down trees.

The discovery came a day after the men had found a makeshift camp at the foot of the mountain that they believed had been used by Chinese loggers. Packets of masala powder and bottles of soy sauce remained in the cooking area. They spent the night there, stringing their hammocks from the camp’s makeshift wooden structures before setting off up the mountain the following morning.

Beyond the excavator, near the summit, they found another camp, with pieces of plastic tarp, aluminum mugs and other items left behind.

“We knew that some people come here, but we didn’t know that they are doing logging,” Vola, 31, said, pointing into the distance at the summit of Ebbatop mountain. “This part is supposed to be untouched.”

As roads, logging and gold mining encroach deeper into Saamaka territory, communities are turning to modern technology to defend forests protected for generations — using satellite images, GPS mapping and patrols to track incursions.

In villages such as Tutubuka, officially known as Nieuw Aurora, along the Upper Suriname River, residents hope the evidence will help secure government recognition of their traditional forest management system, nearly two decades after an international court ordered Suriname to recognize their collective land rights, a ruling that remains largely unfulfilled.

Last year, Suriname pledged to protect 90% of its tropical forests and strengthen conservation laws, potentially including legal recognition of the ancestral lands of Indigenous and tribal communities. The small South American country between Guyana, French Guiana and Brazil has a population of about 650,000 and is about 93% forested. Its forests span parts of the Amazon rainforest and Guiana Shield and absorb more greenhouse gases than the country emits.

Tribal territories in Suriname have lost nearly 154,000 hectares (380,500 acres) of forest since 2001 — roughly twice the size of New York City. Nationwide, about 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) of humid primary forest were lost between 2002 and 2025, according to Global Nature Watch.

The Saamaka are one of Suriname’s six communities descended from Africans who escaped slavery on Dutch plantations and established autonomous settlements deep in the forest in the 17th and 18th centuries. After decades of fighting Dutch colonial forces, they secured a peace agreement in 1762 recognizing their freedom and autonomy. About 60,000 Saamaka people live in Suriname, according to the Association of Saamaka Communities, often called VSG.

For generations, Saamaka clans have governed how their forests can be used through traditional agreements, setting aside areas for farming while protecting others for their spiritual, cultural or historical importance.

Now, communities are mapping these traditionally protected areas to document their forest management system and strengthen their case for government recognition. They named the initiative Apaki in November 2025, after a container made from dried calabash fruit traditionally used to preserve food, symbolizing their efforts to safeguard the forest for future generations.

Hugo Jabini, managing director of VSG and a longtime land rights advocate, said roads are increasingly opening traditionally protected areas to outsiders. Jabini said the Palmera road, which began expanding in 2022 despite Saamaka opposition, now stretches roughly 253 kilometers (157 miles), according to community mapping, opening access to one of the most important Apaki areas.

Jabini, who won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2009, grew up without a road linking his community to Paramaribo. When he first traveled to the capital to continue his education, part of the journey took four days by boat. From the late 1980s, roads began reaching deeper into Saamaka territory, turning journeys of days into hours — while opening once-inaccessible forests to outsiders.

“Within a couple of months,” he said, the road had pushed deep into the forest. “That’s how fast things go.”

John Goedschalk, an adviser to the president of Suriname on climate and biodiversity finance, said the government recognizes the Saamaka’s longstanding role in protecting the country’s forests and is open to working directly with their traditional authorities.

“Their mapping and satellite monitoring can help us enforce where the State alone cannot reach,” said Goedschalk.

He said talks with Saamaka leaders on forest protection are taking place in October and that the government is updating its legal framework to allow community-protected areas to be formally established.

Jabini, however, said he was unaware of any plans for such talks.

The documenting effort increasingly combines knowledge passed down through generations with satellite images and digital maps.

Sara Ramírez, a Colombian researcher working with VSG, said satellite analysis has detected changes in areas so remote that community members initially struggled to believe what they were seeing. Higher-resolution imagery later confirmed signs of activity in one such area.

The information can then guide helicopter flyovers or patrols like the one Vola joined, allowing communities to investigate suspicious clearings or roads first spotted from above.

“They have the information, and then they have the resources to go and check what is happening,” Ramírez said.

Ramírez said the technology is not replacing traditional knowledge but helping the Saamaka document a system outsiders have often failed to recognize. After elders saw maps and satellite images showing new logging and mining during a meeting, some concluded that they needed to formally document Apaki so outsiders could better understand how they have long managed their forests.

The Associated Press joined a helicopter flyover to see firsthand the expansion of logging and gold mining on Saamaka territory, much of it illegal and none approved by Saamaka authorities. From the air, the damage observed was far less extensive than in Colombia, Peru and Brazil, which are already heavily scarred from years of illegal mining and logging. But new roads and small clearings pushing into largely intact forest offered signs of how that footprint is quickly expanding in Suriname.

Natasha Donu, 49, secretary of VSG, said she was shocked by the scale of the new destruction.

“I’m very worried, because I didn’t know that many places were still being destroyed like that,” Donu said just after seeing the latest findings. "There are some places we weren’t expecting to see deforestation.”

Jabini said communities are also training young people to monitor the forest and collect data that can support complaints, negotiations and legal action.

Mapping the forests will help the Saamaka document incursions and strengthen their case for government protection, but it does not give them legal title to the land.

In 2007, the Saamaka won a landmark case at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights after challenging logging and mining concessions granted in their traditional territory. The court ruled that Suriname had violated their property rights and ordered the government to demarcate their territory and grant them collective title. Nearly two decades later, Jabini says key parts of the legally binding ruling remain unimplemented, leaving communities without the legal authority to control what happens on their land.

Goedschalk, the adviser to Suriname’s president, said the president has imposed a moratorium on new gold mining concessions and extensions to ease pressure on the country’s interior. He also pointed to Suriname’s commitment to maintain 90% forest cover, saying cooperation with communities such as the Saamaka would be essential to meeting that goal.

Jabini said he received a death threat earlier this year after Saamaka communities challenged a gold-mining concession near Paba Creek, a major Apaki protected area. He reported the threat to police and temporarily changed his movements. Earlier threats drove him to live in the Netherlands from 2016 to 2022. Since returning, he said, he has taken greater security precautions and avoids publicizing his whereabouts.

There are divisions within Saamaka communities, too. Gold mining provides income for some residents, and Jabini acknowledges that those who depend on it may support the industry’s expansion, even as others fight to keep it out of protected forests. With Suriname preparing for an offshore oil boom, questions are also growing about how new wealth and development could affect the country’s forested interior.

For Saamaka leaders, the maps offer evidence of what their communities have protected for generations. But lasting protection, they say, depends on the government recognizing their territorial rights and stopping unwanted incursions.

For Vola, who helped lead the forest patrol, the stakes extend far beyond his own lifetime.

“This is our wealth and this is what we are fighting for,” he said. “Maybe a thousand generations from now, this must still be here like how our ancestors left it for us.”

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Dennis Adipi, a member of the Saamaka community, lights candles at a camp to spend the night in Ebbatop, Suriname, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Members of the Saamaka community take a bath in a river in Ebbatop, Suriname, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Dennis Adipi, a member of the Saamaka community, makes a camp to spend the night while patrolling in Ebbatop, Suriname, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Dennis Adipi, a member of the Saamaka community, patrols in Ebbatop, Suriname, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

An illegal logging truck drives down a road on the outskirts of Paramaribo, Suriname, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

An illegal logging camp is visible in the Saamaka territory of the Amazon rainforest in Suriname, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Members of the Saamaka community patrol in Ebbatop, Suriname, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Illegal mining is visible in the Saamaka territory of the Amazon rainforest in Suriname, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Hugo Jabini, managing director of the Association of Saamaka Communities, poses for a photo in Nieuw Aurora, Suriname, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Sara Ramirez, a researcher working for the Association of Saamaka Communities, talks with a group about satellite analysis in Nieuw Aurora, Suriname, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

A girl runs to her house in Nieuw Aurora, Suriname, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

A member of Saamaka community patrols in Ebbatop, Suriname, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

A king vulture flies in Ebbatop, Suriname, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Navaldo Vola, member of the Saamaka community, patrols in Ebbatop, Suriname, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Illegal mining is visible in the Saamaka territory of the Amazon rainforest outside of Paramaribo, Suriname, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Navaldo Vola, a member of the Saamaka community, checks an abandoned excavator from illegal miners in Ebbatop, Suriname, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

CORINTH, Miss. (AP) — President Donald Trump heads Monday to Mississippi, as he continues a closing midterm campaign blitz that highlights Republicans' challenges ahead of an election that could drastically shift power in Washington and statehouses across the country.

Mississippi, among the nation's most reliably Republican states, is not where the party envisioned needing a late-October stop from the president. But GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith faces a stiff challenge from Scott Colom, one of many Democratic underdogs that have managed to expand the House and Senate battleground maps because of widespread voter discontent over inflation, the Iran war and other aspects of Trump’s second presidency.

The evening rally with Hyde-Smith will kick off a week that continues to pit Trump against former President Barack Obama, the Democrat he first succeeded in 2017, and former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrat he defeated in 2024 to return to power. Trump's itinerary has been taking him to many states that he won comfortably in 2024.

Other top nominees and surrogates are greeting voters — almost 30 million of whom have already cast ballots — as Republicans scramble to protect their threadbare majority in the House, shore up a Senate majority that was once thought secure and maintain the GOP's national advantage in state capitals.

Minnesota was the center of the progressive movement’s effort to leverage many Americans’ economic struggles, as Democratic Senate nominee Peggy Flanagan, the current lieutenant governor, welcomed House Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., to advocate for a national health insurance plan to achieve universal coverage.

“Everywhere I go on this tour I meet Minnesotans who are working hard and doing everything right and still can’t afford to take care of themselves or the people they love,” said Flanagan, who is backed by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Flanagan is running against former sportscaster Michele Tafoya for the open seat.

If passed, the healthcare bill, which would include added benefits such as dental, vision, and hearing coverage, could save up to $1 trillion in healthcare spending, Jayapal said at the conference.

“We desperately need to build a completely different system and stop tinkering around the edges of a sick care system,” said Jayapal, who is the lead author and sponsor of the bill.

Harris was to campaign in neighboring Wisconsin with Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who faces Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Trump ally, for governor. Crowley would be the state’s first Black governor if elected to lead the battleground state.

In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms are getting an assist from Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association and a likely 2028 presidential candidate, two days after Trump made his second October visit to the state.

Vice President JD Vance was headed to Kansas on behalf of Sen. Roger Marshall, who finds himself locked in a tight contest with Democratic nominee and United Methodist megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton in a state that hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 1932.

House Democrats also continue to expand their spending footprint, with the House Majority PAC announcing almost $2.5 million in new spending in Minnesota and Indiana districts that had been considered solid GOP territory earlier in the cycle.

The Minnesota seat has been reliably Republican for generations, other than a recent stretch when Tim Walz, the state's two-term governor and Democrats' 2024 vice presidential nominee, represented the sprawling, heavily rural district.

But it's Trump's visit to Mississippi that perhaps brings the midterm landscape into the sharpest relief with just a week of campaigning left before votes are tallied.

To be sure, Hyde-Smith, who is vying for her second full term, remains the favorite in a state Trump won three times by an average of nearly 20 percentage points.

But Colom, a local prosecutor who would make history as Mississippi's first Black senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction, is looking to parlay inflation, Trump's lagging popularity and Hyde-Smith's mistakes into an upset.

Colom has outpaced Hyde-Smith in fundraising since he launched his campaign last year, and he caught national attention this month with an ad that played off Hyde-Smith dismissing beef prices — driven higher by Trump's tariffs and fuel spikes resulting from the Iran war. The ad features Hyde-Smith, a former state agriculture commissioner, saying that consumers “have so many other proteins to choose from,” followed by several characters, and then Colom, saying Mississippi should “pick another senator instead.”

Colom's campaign followed with a social media video that featured an AI-generated Hyde-Smith dodging questions about that controversy and other issues. The Democrat took down the video after the Mississippi attorney general said it could violate state law barring the use of deepfakes so close to Election Day.

Senate Democrats’ super PAC, meanwhile, has been a late entry in the contest, with a $1.2 million investment — a paltry sum compared with Senate contests in more populous states like Texas or Georgia but an amount that can go farther in Mississippi’s smaller television markets.

Mississippians have not chosen a new Democratic senator since 1947, and Democrats last won a Senate race there when that senator, the onetime segregationist John Stennis, won his last reelection in 1982.

South Carolina has emerged as another unexpectedly competitive Senate race where a Democratic victory by Dr. Annie Andrews over Sen. Darline Graham, who was appointed to succeed her late brother, would rank as a seismic upset.

Trump announced Monday that he'd be returning to the state on Thursday for his second general election visit on Graham's behalf. Andrews, meanwhile, touted a bipartisan endorsement Monday from two former South Carolina governors, Republican David Beasley and Democrat Jim Hodges. Andrews’ campaign says more than 100 Republicans have joined her “Republicans for Annie” coalition.

Republicans currently hold a 53-47 Senate majority, meaning Democrats must flip at least four seats for a change in control. The GOP began the cycle with a 220-215 advantage in the House, but a national gerrymandering fight made nine Democrats-held seats friendlier to Republicans based on 2024 presidential outcomes in those districts.

Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press reporters John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; and Laura Turbay in St. Paul, Minnesota, contributed.

Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, left, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, receives an embrace from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., at a campaign rally Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, at Lincoln Park Middle School in Duluth, Minn. (AP Photo/Erica Dischino)

President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a campaign rally at McMorran Place Sports and Entertainment Center, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, in Port Huron, Mich. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)