Brownsberg Nature Park

"The Brownsberg is synonymous to easy access to a forested landscape otherwise only to be found at very remote, hardly accessible places"

Brownsberg Nature park is the only nature park in Suriname. Located in the northcentral part of Suriname, some 130 km almost due south of Paramaribo. Its surface area is about 8,000 ha, and encompasses more than half of the entire Brownsberg Mountain Range. Brownsberg is the closest location to the city where your can find primary rainforest with an abundance of endemic flora en fauna species.
There are guest lodges/bungalows located on the plateau, overlooking the man-made reservoir Van Blommenstein Meer.

The Brownsberg Nature Park covers part of the Brownsberg area, an area dominated by a 500 m high lateritic plateau. The park is based on a long-term lease to the STINASU; it incorporates about half of the forested Brownsberg plateau, and scenic slopes and creek valleys extending as far as the Brokopondo lake - a vast hydropower reservoir - which lies to the East. Human disturbance is not strange to the area: traces of pre-columbian presence are evident, and there is a two century long history of mineral and forest exploration and exploitation. Because of all this, the plateau is now well accessible, and despite it, the plateau and slope ecosystems have not suffered extensive damage. Nevertheless, a recent upsurge in gold mining activity near the Brownsberg is causing problems, such as forest clearing, creek pollution and increased hunting.

Because the Brownsberg plateau is a huge lateritic crust, and because of its elevation, some very peculiar and rare vegetation types occur in the park, such as low-elevation cloud forest. Along most of the Eastern rim of the plateau, clouds are constantly formed by air moving up the slopes. These clouds penetrate the forest there, and have resulted in the trees and abundant lianas being laden with mosses and ferns. There is a diverse fauna and flora, including species which are otherwise known only from more remote areas, farther in the interior of Suriname, such as the bell-bird.

Brownsberg is an excellent area for research because it provides easy access to forested habitats, and to plant and animal species which are otherwise difficult to get at and observe. The Brownsberg is presumed to have been an ancient forest refuge, and holds rare species, some of which appear to be Brownsberg endemics.

PERMANENT RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE at the Brownsberg

The larger Brownsberg area offers various kinds of useful infrastructure, but on the Brownsberg plateau the only permanent tourist facilities. At the northeastern margin of the Brownsberg plateau, an about 7-8 km drive from the foot of the slope, is the Managers headquarters: several tourist lodges, buildings for staff and workers, an office, a workshop, and a small garage. Visiting researchers stay in the tourist lodges, as there are no special research lodges yet. Getting to the Brownsberg plateau is very easy; one can drive all the way from the capital to the lodges.

Based on a recently finished zoning plan an entire creek catchment area - including part of the plateau - will be set aside for research purposes, and will become more or less off-limits to other visitors. As yet, there are no demarcated research sites within the Brownsberg park.

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