Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Land Management in Suriname
Land Management in Suriname
IN SURINAME
The Challenge of
Formulating Land Policy
• SUMMARY
• INTRODUCTION
• PROFILE OF THE COUNTRY
- Land use: historical profile
- Current land use zones
- Land Registry and Information
THE POLICY DRIVERS
- General policy drivers
- Region specific drivers
• CONCLUSION
• RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary:
Suriname land management is based on a regulatory
regime
The domain principle is the basis of Suriname land
law (confers private ownership of all untitled land to
the State)
The Government of Suriname wants to retool and
initiate reform in the land management system,
including the introduction of a number of more
liberalized regimes
New land policy has to be formulated to develop and
support new land management and administration
regimes
Introduction:
A feasibility study was conducted of the land
management issues in Suriname (extensive diagnoses
identified 25 issues, main report with 34 proposals and
a detailed annex)
The process of formulating a proposal for the
implementation of a Suriname Land Management P
Program (SLMP) is now underway
General land management policy directives are
needed to guide this process
A development cycle that is both comparatively
informed and context sensitive is being designed to
structure this process
Profile of the Country:
Total population: 440,000
Land area: 163820 km2
Inhabitants per km2: 0.38
Inhabitants per km2 (Paramaribo) 1248
Inhabitants per km2 (Wanica) 160
Inhabitants per km2:(Sipaliwini, 80% of area) 0.18
GDP/per capita: xxx
Number of households: 120.000
% growth of population: 2.2%
Historical Profile of Land Use
Pre 1650 Differentiated by indigenous occupation
1650 - 1875 Plantation economy based on slavery in
the rural coastal area, indigenous
peoples and escaped slaves occupy the
interior (subsistence farming)
1875 - 1950 Decline of the plantation economy,
indentured labor to save plantations,
emergence of small-scale farming
on the coast, emergence of extraction
industry (rubber, gold, bauxite) economic
incursions into the interior (bauxite &
timber by river, gold train)
Historical Profile of Land Use
1950 - 1975 Expansion of bauxite industry,hydro-
electric dam and smelter, emergence
of mechanized agriculture, road
network and timber industry expands,
outboard motor & air service to the
interior areas, peri-urban areas emerge,
consolidation of indigenous settlements,
transmigration enlarges settlements
1975 - to date Exhaustion of resources near the coast,
further penetration into the interior
(bauxite, timber, construction
sand/gravel), re-emergence gold
industry, peak and decline of large
scale agriculture, more public housing
schemes, peri-urban expansion
Land Use Zones of Suriname:
Urban land housing, commerce, industry
Peri-urban Land gardening, animal husbandry,
housing, commerce, industry,
recreation
Rural Coastal Land large scale farming, mining,
animal husbandry, small scale
farming, gardening, aqua-culture,
industry, housing, commerce, timber,
tourism, conservation land
Rural-interior Land shifting cultivation, hunting, timber,
mining, gathering, housing, tourism,
conservation land
TABLE 3: NUMBER OF TENURE TITLES IN SURIANME