We open with drone shots of the Amazon in Suriname. Our host Rafaela tells us that the Suriname Basin within the last six years revealed at least 13 billion barrels of oil just off the coast. However, the countries economic crisis, and export dependence has left the country open to external shocks. 

To better understand how this new discovery of oil is going to affect the Amazon, Rafaela heads to Paramaribo, to meet with a local scholar. 

Anton de Kom University of Suriname. Rafaela walks the campus with the scholar. They explain that Suriname is at a crossroads, politically and economically, and culturally. 

From the oil finds in its offshore waters, to the trauma left behind from the previous administration to the new era Cold war standoff between China and The US. Through articles, and archival, we see a photo of Bouterse, Suriname’s former president. The scholar tells us that the return of Desi Bouterse as Suriname’s president in 2010 resulted in a suspension of Dutch aid to the country. In 2000, the Netherlands sentenced Bouterse to 11 years imprisonment after being convicted of trafficking 474 kg of cocaine and is also tied to the December 1982 murders of 15 people. All while his son, Dino, is in prison in the United States after helping Islamist group Hezbollah set up base in Suriname. These convictions, resulted in the west withdrawing from the country, while the Chinese have no qualms with Bouterse’s alleged human rights or criminal records. 

Beyond that, Venezuelan funding has raised concerns over how the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and Bouterse really are. In this, China has seen Suriname as an outpost for Caribbean expansion despite the US adamant disapproval. To understand how this affects the future of the Amazon and get a better picture of how Suriname’s resources are at stake, Rafaela boards a sea plane with a local NGO leader, and is going to be dropped off for three days, as that’s the soonest the next plane can come… if the weather cooperates. 

The flight is terrifying, a 3-person plane over a heavily wooded area with unpredictable weather. Rafaela has to calm herself but makes it to to the Trio tribe. That afternoon, Rafaela follows the tribes’ hunters as they catch their meal. Iguanas, local fish, and a smothering of wild plants. One of the hunters tells Rafaela that gold mining, logging, hunting, poaching are encroaching on their resources. That these activities have degraded water quality which affects the natural resources necessary for hunting, fishing, and medicinal plants. After they catch what they need, they return to the village to share a meal. 

The village. 

Rafaela sits down to eat with the villagers. She interviews the younger adults, about their lives and aspirations. They tell her that NGOs have come in asking them to create a cultural map that shows where each tribe begins and ends, with an index of the medicinal plants and their cultural beliefs. Using drones, GPS, and google maps, the young indigenous villagers are laying out the context of their erased history. 

All in hopes that they have the answers of how we can sustainably adapt to our new world. This can only take place when the harvesting cycles and seasons aren’t active, as not to disturb their own infrastructure. Rafaela asks what fears they may have. The villagers tell her that they’re concerned about the property contained in the maps getting into the wrong hands. Instead of being used for good on a local level, being exploited of their timber, land and medicinal plants. The next morning, Rafaela sits down with the NGO leader, to ask them about their findings and hopes for the future. 

The leader yells us that despite its small size, Suriname moves tons of cocaine to Europe and is overrun by organized crime and money-laundering operations. Cocaine enters Suriname over land, by sea, or by air, with little risk of detection in a jungle that covers 90 percent of its territory. On top of this, the Amazon houses many disease fighting plants. No one understands the secrets of these plants better than indigenous people who have cured everything from foot rot to diabetes with them. However, as forests fall to loggers, miners and farmers, and the allure of city life attracts younger generations to cities, knowledge of the lifesaving medicinal plants are at risk of being forgotten. The combined loss of this knowledge and these forests could change the world as we know it. So, the NGO leader hopes that the rest of the world will invest in the indigenous communities and employ them to lead the charge in the conservation efforts, and regulation into the next decades. 

Rafaela and the NGO leader waiting for the seaplane. A montage of moments with the indigenous community and Rafaela plays, as her voiceover tells us what she learned. She tells us that she has hopes for the future and urges companies to invest in Indigenous communities to lay the groundwork for a carbon neutral economy. Rather than creating a second cold war over resources, that are destroying out planet, and our integrity