Underlying this region is a massive geological formation known as the Guayana Shield, a two-billion-year-old, Pre-Cambrian formation. For countless millennia the Guayana Shield has supported a great diveristy of flora and fauna.

This region of northern South America remains as one of the few remaining continuous forested tracts in the world. As a result of this, several wildlife species that are considered endangered elsewhere in their range have healthy populations in the Guiana Shield.

Suriname, located in the center of this region, is strategically placed to be a leader in the protection of this priceless biological resource. With a land area of 166,000 square kilometers and a human population of 412,000 - Suriname is one of the least densely populated countries in the world. The fact that the interior of Suriname, covered with undisturbed Neotropical Amazonian forest, is largely uninhabited makes it one of the most important places anywhere for tropical forest conservation.

The Guayana Shield is becoming a global focus for the conservation and sustainable and equitable use of wildlife initiatives. One of the great challenges facing the international community is to find ways to create opportunities for involving local peoples in managing the global environment.

The most obvious human activities influencing wildlife in this region in a negative sense are hunting, fishing, the wildlife trade, traffic, habitat destruction, pollution, the introduction of exotic species, and the killing of animals as vermin or competitors.

Hunting and fishing are carried out by the local Amerindians and Maroons for their subsistence and by people from town for 'sport." A substantial wildlife export trade concentrates on parrots, reptiles and birds from the region. Aquatic pollution from mining operations affect large sections of the region's river systems. Mercury pollution, in particular, caused by artisanal gold mining, is at present a very serious concern.

A growing network of roads in connection with timber harvesting is also presenting new opportunities for wildlife harvesting.

The fate of the Guayana Shield clearly will rely on the value that the local communities place on this tropical ecosystem.