The Surinamese jungle is teeming with gold seekers: ‘If you are physically strong and can live in the forest far from the outside world for a long time, you will quickly become rich’

It was the day after the outbreak of the war in Iran, at the end of February, that gold prospector Denilson Saaki decided to travel to Paramaribo with the gold he had found in the jungle the days before. “I thought it would be a good time to melt it down and sell it. I thought: the gold price must be high now,” he says.

Saaki was right, because when he arrived in Paramaribo, the price of gold had risen by 4 dollars in a few days: from 123 to 127 per gram. “I have been doing this work for sixteen years, but prices have skyrocketed in the last few years. In January there was even a day when the price was more than 140 euros per gram. Gold is popular, we also notice that here,” says the gold digger.

Due to the unrest in the world – wars, an oil crisis and an unstable global economy – the price of gold rose to historic levels in recent years. In times of uncertainty, investing in the precious metal offers more stability than money, the thinking goes. For example, in 2021 a kilo of gold still had a value of more than 51,000 euros. By 2025, this had already risen to almost 118,000 euros. And in the first quarter of this year, the price peaked to a record high of 150,000 euros for a kilo of gold.

Since the high gold price, the Brokopondo district, more than an hour’s drive from Paramaribo, in the middle of the jungle, is teeming with gold seekers more than ever. There are no exact figures, but in one report By 2023, the Organization of American States, a partnership of all 35 independent countries in the Western Hemisphere, estimates the number of illegal gold diggers in Suriname at around 70,000. A significant increase compared to 2019, when the number was estimated at around 30,000 to 40,000 gold seekers. Besides Surinamese, they are predominantly Brazilians – the so-called garimpeiros – who work in the gold sector, about 60 percent. Meanwhile, Chinese, Venezuelans and Cuban migrants are also searching for gold in the Surinamese jungle. This mainly concerns informal gold activities, out of sight of the government. Little or no tax is paid and the foreigners who work in the mines are often in the country illegally, without a residence permit.

Goldland ‘El Dorado’

Gold seekers first cut down the primeval forest to excavate an area and then look for gold there. It has been known since the seventeenth century that there is plenty of gold in the ground here and since then Brokopondo has had a strong attraction for gold seekers. There were even suspicions that the legendary gold country ‘El Dorado’ was located in this region.

The Surinamese economy floats on gold. About 80 percent of all Suriname’s export income comes from the gold sector. About forty tons of gold is exported from Suriname every year. A large part is earned in the extensive informal gold sector, in small mines where gold miners such as Denilson Saaki work. In addition to the informal gold sector, there is industrial gold mining by two multinationals: the American Newmont, in which the Surinamese national oil company Staatsolie has a 25 percent share. And the Chinese Zijin Mining Group, in which Staatsolie is a 5 percent shareholder. Suriname now earns more from the shares and royalties due to the higher gold price, the country is also estimated to lose hundreds of millions annually. This is due to the extensive and lucrative illegal gold mining that does not reach the public treasury and gold that is smuggled out of the country.

While Denilson Saaki peers from behind his sunglasses into the bright rays of the sun at the valley in Brokopondo, a group of men below with excavators are busy deepening a huge hole. Gold concessions are often in the hands of owners in Paramaribo. In exchange for a percentage of the gold, they allow gold miners to work and live on their property. At the edge of the sand pit there are a few wooden barracks with hammocks where the men sleep among the mosquitoes and spiders. They live on rice with game such as pingos (forest pigs) and armadillos, which they hunt in the area.

Because of his years of experience, Saaki is not only a gold prospector himself in this mine, but also the person who manages the other men, including his friends and family members. “It is hard work and we work long hours. But we were able to make good investments due to the high gold price and bought these machines. Just in time, because the price has now fallen again,” he says.

Because prices can fluctuate – sometimes the gold price is higher and the next week it is lower – gold miners ensure that they melt some of their gold finds into jewelry. “I always make sure I have a set of rings or earrings made from some of the gold I find, so that I have something on hand. It makes it easier to sell jewelry if necessary,” says Saaki.

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Abmael Silva Sousa melts gold in his company Carioca Metais in Paramaribo.

Photos Jurgen Lachman

There is hardly any supervision and control from the government on this informal method of gold mining. Successive Surinamese governments promised to regulate the gold sector, for example to impose stricter taxes and impose controls on both gold miners and concessionaires. That is why the government organization Ordening Goudsector Suriname (OGS) was founded in 2011. However, so far this has hardly led to more regulation and supervision and in practice illegal gold mining is tolerated by the government.

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Self-interest of powerful Surinamese

There are major self-interests at play: many of the mines are in the hands of influential and powerful Surinamese, including well-known politicians. It is well known in Suriname that the current vice-chairman of parliament, also former vice-president, Ronnie Brunswijk himself owns several gold concessions. Brunswijk regularly places his social media pride videos about his gold income. He recently filmed his brand new excavators. While the Surinamese constitution prohibits a president or vice president from participating in a concession or company.

Meanwhile, forest destruction continues at a rapid pace, much to the concern of environmental organizations. Now that the gold price has been high for several years in a row, deforestation is increasing. According to a report The international NGOs Amazon Conservation and Amazon Mining Watch estimate that almost 90,000 hectares of forest in Suriname have been destroyed by gold mining in the past twenty years. 25,000 hectares of this, about 28 percent, was lost between 2021 and 2024, precisely during the period when the gold price continued to rise.

The Brokopondo region is particularly affected. For example, the nearby Brownsberg Nature Park has attracted many illegal gold seekers in recent years. This is an area of ​​more than 12,000 hectares of jungle and special flora and fauna, including jaguars and capybaras. But just beyond the waterfalls in the nature park, excavators are destroying the forest and illegal gold diggers are at work.

The Surinamese environmental organization Probios has been trying in vain for years to awaken the population and the authorities to the environmental consequences of gold mining. And for the problems this causes for public health. Because gold mining uses life-threatening substances such as mercury and cyanide.

Things regularly go wrong. In the spring of 2023, a boat capsized in the nearby Brokopondo reservoir with fifteen bags of cyanide-containing substances on board. As a result, the water of this largest lake in Suriname, an important source of drinking water, became contaminated. Water samples showed that 1,600 times as much cyanide had ended up in the reservoir than the standard for drinking water allows. Local residents saw a greenish color in the water and reported fish deaths. And they even got sick: a number of people got stomach complaints and a painful and burning feeling in their limbs after swimming.

Nearly sixty thousand kilos of mercury are also released into the environment every year. Research by Tulane University in New Orleans showed that mercury levels in the bodies of residents from the interior of Suriname were two to four times higher than the international standard.

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The gold seekers in the hills of Brokopondo admit that gold mining is not without destruction of nature. They are guilty of it too. “We do have to deforest if we want to search for gold in an area. But we try to limit the damage by not removing more trees than necessary,” says gold prospector Saaki, who grew up in one of the Maroon villages in the interior of Suriname. These villages were founded in colonial times by runaway plantation slaves who fled into the jungle. “Ultimately, we live in the middle of the forest ourselves,” he says.

Gold buying companies

While high gold prices domestically cause greater environmental damage, the gold sector in Paramaribo is flourishing. The north of the capital has been the place where most gold shops are located for years. Often with Portuguese inscriptions, because most of these companies are owned by Brazilians. Here you will find shops with all the necessities for novice gold diggers. The latest models of excavators are on display and there are signs at the gold buying companies with daily gold prices.

Brazilian entrepreneur Abmael Silva Sousa of gold buying company Carioca Metais is on the morning that NRC passes by busy with gold seekers who want to have their gold melted and sold. He receives the paper bags with the chunks of gold from the jungle. By melting these chunks in a melting furnace, the last impurities, such as sand and gravel residues, are removed, leaving a pure and shiny block of gold. Although there is no database of the number of gold companies in the district, Silva Sousa has noticed a clear increase. “There were dozens, maybe twenty at most. But in the last five years I have seen many more businesses, there are now forty or fifty. There is hardly any competition between us, there is so much demand that we can all do good business.”

Because of everything that is happening in the world, the unrest and uncertainty, gold gives more confidence than money. “It provides security, because it always retains value,” says Silva Sousa. On the wall of Carioca Metais there are large black and white photos of gold mines in Brazil, from the region where Silva Sousa started out as a gold prospector in his youth. A true gold rush has also broken out in his own country due to the high gold prices. This has consequences for the Amazon in particular. Research by the aforementioned Amazon Mining Watch shows that approximately six hectares of forest in the Amazon have been cleared as a result of mining activities in the last two months of 2025.

Although most deforestation in the Amazon is not caused by gold mining but by livestock farming, and the deforestation figures are actually lower in percentage terms than a few years ago, this research reveals something else remarkable. Gold seekers in the Amazon are now mainly moving to new, unexplored and unknown areas and looking for gold there. Silva Sousa: “The economic crisis and high oil prices are making everything more expensive. This mainly affects people who are already poor. In Brazil, gold mining is a way to earn money quickly. If you are physically strong and can live far from the outside world in the forest for a long time, you will quickly become rich,” he says.

That’s exactly what gold prospector Denilson Saaki and his men are hoping for. For the time being they are still working in this spot in the jungle, but if they soon no longer find enough, they will move further into the forest. There the process starts again; removing trees, excavating the area and searching for gold.

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