分类： environment

There are some places that leave an indelible mark on anyone who visits them. Climbing Creek, a sprawling swamp in Nickerie, Suriname, is one of those special yet threatened sites. Slowly poisoned by encroaching saltwater, this once-thriving ecosystem faces collapse not from natural forces, but from an unplanned man-made canal dug years ago with no oversight. I joined a small team of military personnel on a 20-day expedition into the swamp to document the quiet work of repairing the damage others left behind. This story is not a pretty one, but it is one that demands to be told.

From the team’s base camp, the scale of ecological destruction is immediately visible. Large swathes of the swamp have dried out completely, leaving only parched earth and dying vegetation. Only small pockets flood during high tide, drawing flocks of desperate birds searching for remaining fish, shrimp and crabs to survive. Every day, the team wades into mud that reaches above their knees to plant young native mangrove saplings along the creek’s eroding banks, carefully placing each seedling just above the water line where it has the best chance of taking root. They pull each other out of deep sticky mud when they get stuck, but no amount of discomfort stops them from completing their daily work.

As more trees and native vegetation succumb to salt poisoning, the team presses on. While laughter echoes from the canal as team members cool off between shifts, their camp cook prepares a simple lunch of spiced chicken, rice and smoked fish that I was invited to share. What these few men accomplish here is almost impossible to put into words. If the saplings survive, the site will slowly regenerate into a dense mangrove forest over one to three years. These mangroves will hold freshwater in the swamp, allow silt to build up, and eventually choke and close the unauthorized canal entirely. Ecologists have already seen this successful restoration model work on similar projects along the Nickerie coast.

The bitter irony of this story is hard to miss: one individual’s unregulated decision to dig a casual canal triggered an entire regional ecological disaster, and no authority has ever been held accountable. It falls to this tiny, under-resourced team to prove that repair is possible, working tirelessly for a greater public good with no fanfare and no recognition. Few people will ever see the sacrifices they make or the hardships they endure here, so their story has remained untold — until now.

As the midday heat grows unbearable, the men rest in hammocks strung above dead vegetation, seeking what little relief they can find. When the sun dips lower, they inspect their boat engines, only to discover that two of the three are broken: one has a damaged propeller, and the other has an internal mechanical failure. They make the call to send both broken engines back with me for repair, along with 12 empty water containers and drained fuel tanks to be refilled on the outside.

Night falls fast, and the high tide needed to navigate the narrow creek will not turn until around 9 p.m. The team builds a campfire, which immediately draws swarms of venomous horseflies and large black mosquitoes. They place mosquito-repelling candles all around our resting spot on the canal bank. As we wait for the tide, the men share stories of their work, the daily challenges they face, and how much they long to return home to their young families. They have already spent 18 days in the swamp, with just two more left to plant the remaining saplings, and they are determined to hit their planting target before they leave. They plan to launch at 7 a.m. the next day for their final push: the cook will stay behind at base camp, while the rest head three to five kilometers further up the coast to plant the last of the saplings.

When the tide finally comes in, the team rushes to free the stuck boat from the muddy bank and load it for our departure. By the light of the campfire and a single lantern, the world around us is pitch black, save for a brilliant unobscured view of the starry night sky. Before we board, we wrap every inch of exposed skin, leaving only our eyes visible to ward off insect bites. We each get a fresh mosquito candle to hold, and the boat pulls out into the dark canal. The 25-horsepower engine is far more power than the narrow waterway needs, so the captain navigates slowly, weaving carefully through shallow stretches. Within minutes, hundreds of gnats, mosquitoes and other unknown insects swarm around the candle flame. Glittering eyes reflect the captain’s headlamp along both banks: crocodiles drawn to the fish that congregate in the canal. No one feels fear, only quiet awe for the wild natural world unfolding around us under the moonless starry sky. Fish jump around the boat, and we repeatedly toss a small juvenile sea turtle that accidentally landed on board back into the water.

Meter by meter, the boat pushes through the narrow canal. The passengers’ only goal is to avoid getting bitten, but there is still a quiet thrill to this adventurous night journey. We quickly lose count of how many crocodiles we spot: some show only their heads peeking above the water, while others rest on the bank, their glossy brown-black skin glinting in the headlamp’s glow. We are so focused on the landscape around us that we fall quiet, letting the rumble of the engine mix with the calls of night birds, the splash of jumping fish, the rustle of reeds and the soft rush of water.

By the time we reach the dam, the tide is already receding, putting pressure on the two men who will have to make the return trip to camp after dropping us off. Our first mosquito candle has burned down, so we get a fresh one. Two hours later, as we approach the dam, the three men with us jump back into the mud to push and pull the heavily loaded boat meter by meter over the dam. Fish dart through the shallow mud around their feet, grateful for any bit of remaining water, visible only in the beam of the captain’s headlamp — the only light we use to avoid disturbing wildlife.

With the last of their strength, they pull the boat over the dam and launch it into the irrigation channel that will take us to the main road. Once in the wider channel, the captain opens the engine, and the boat speeds across the warm water. A fish the size of a hand leaps right into the boat, and I toss it back to safety. Black silhouettes of dead trees line the banks — a stark reminder of the damage that has been done, but under the starry sky, there is a quiet, heartbreaking beauty to the scene rather than menace. We reach the dock just minutes before midnight, and unload the boat quickly so the two men can head back to camp while the tide still holds. Even without the heavy load, pulling the boat back over the dam through the mud to reach deep enough water for the engine remains a brutal, backbreaking job.

We wave goodbye, and soon only the rumble of the engine and a faint beam of headlight are visible before the dark swallows everything. We climb into a waiting vehicle for the drive to Nieuw Nickerie. The drive is once again through complete darkness: large stretches of the main east-west highway have no streetlights at all, a fact that leaves me wondering why basic infrastructure has never been extended to this remote region. By the time we reach town, fatigue from the day’s heat and work has set in deep. It is 3 a.m. when I step into a hot shower to wash off the swamp mud, and climb into bed, the images of the day still burned clear into my memory.

Back in Nieuw Nickerie, the shower washed away the mud, but it cannot wash away the images I carry with me: the dying fish gasping in dry mud, the soldier singing while he worked chest-deep in mud, the 12,000 young mangrove saplings waiting for the freshwater they need to survive.

No one can say for sure if this restoration project will succeed. It depends on tides, on weather, on continued commitment from people who believe in the work. But one thing I know for certain: these men are showing up, every single day, with no audience, no praise, and no reward. The destructive canal still sits there, and no one in power has ever answered for the damage it caused.

If you ever find yourself near Climbing Creek, take a moment to think of these men. Think of what they do there, working under the burning sun, knee-deep in mud, for a forest that will not even grow for another three years. And think of what this place could have been, if one person had never had that unregulated, destructive idea in the first place.

There are some landscapes that embed themselves in your memory the moment you set foot on them. Climbing Creek, a freshwater swamp in Nickerie, Suriname, is one such place — but it is slowly being poisoned by saltwater, a catastrophe caused not by natural climate shift, but by an unregulated man-made canal dug three years ago. I joined a small team of military personnel on a journey into the heart of the swamp to document the damage and meet the team working to undo what has been broken. I’m writing this story not because it is pretty, but because it demands to be told.

It was early morning when our group gathered at Wageningen’s irrigation canal, the only access point to Climbing Creek. We knew this would not be an ordinary trip, but nothing could prepare us for what we would witness. Fifteen minutes after we arrived, the rumble of an outboard motor cut through the morning air — our boat had arrived. Stowing our backpacks, packed full of water, fruit and sweet buns, we climbed aboard, ready for the journey ahead. Even in these early hours, the tropical sun beat down heavily as our small aluminum craft cut through the canal’s waters.

The opening stretch of the trip was deceptively beautiful: dense greenery lined both banks, tall drought-stressed trees stood along the water’s edge, and coastal shorebirds foraged for their first meal of the day. Occasionally, fish jumped into our boat by accident, which we gently released back into the water. With four people on board including the skipper, the 15-horsepower engine wove carefully through dense vegetation, the captain working tirelessly to avoid reeds, roots, driftwood and abandoned fishing nets from catching in the propeller — a task that required considerable skill.

Three bends into the canal, we reached the small dam that normally requires our boat to be hauled across by hand. But the water level in Climbing Creek was far too low to allow through passage. We had no choice but to wait for a second boat to be sent from deeper inside the swamp to pick us up. As we stood on the dam, the full scope of the disaster unfolded before our eyes. As far as 100 meters out, the swamp was exposed, cracked mud stretching to the horizon. Only one small pool of water remained among the reeds, and the surface was literally churning with fish gasping and fighting for survival. In the mud nearby, I watched a silver-grey fish make its last weak tail flicker before succumbing to the conditions.

The air was thick with the acrid stench of rotting fish and decomposing mud. It was only at that moment that I understood the meaning of those tall, brown dead trees I had seen at the start of our journey. They had not died from drought — they had been poisoned by saltwater.

Three years ago, a private entrepreneur proposed digging a canal cutting straight through the swamp to connect it to the ocean. The plan was approved by the then-minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, but the real motives for the canal remain unclear. What is undeniable is the catastrophic aftermath: freshwater from the swamp drains out to sea, while salty ocean water flows inland into the wetland. The result has been mass die-offs of freshwater wetland fish, and the widespread death of native vegetation that cannot tolerate high salt levels. What I witnessed on the dam was just a fraction of the full-scale destruction.

After an hour waiting on the dam, we heard singing drifting across the mudflats. We spotted two soldiers working to bring a small boat to us: one sat in the craft, singing encouragement to the second, who waded through mud up to his thighs, hauling the boat forward over unstable ground as he searched for firmer footing. Eventually, the singing soldier jumped into the mud too, as the final hundred meters to reach us proved nearly impossible. The tide had already begun to recede back to the ocean, and water levels never reached the dam as initially predicted.

With the help of a third soldier who had joined our group, the two men finally pulled the boat up to the dam, sparing us from having to wade through the thick muck. Immediately, the three soldiers jumped into the irrigation canal to wash off the sticky mud, taking a quick, refreshing break. But the water they bathed in is not ordinary water — it is the water that bears witness to this quiet, unfolding ecological disaster, and I have seen it with my own eyes.

We loaded our minimal gear and a cooler onto the smaller boat and continued our journey deeper into Climbing Creek. With the boat heavier, the three men pushed it through thick mud, the scorching sun amplifying the rotten stench that hung in the air. Nowhere along the canal was the water more than a meter deep. Reeds hung over the banks, and loose dead vegetation floated freely across the surface. The skipper maneuvered carefully between reed beds, searching for the deepest channels, and often had to lift the propeller to clear debris or avoid collision with sunken logs. We inched forward meter by meter, until the engine suddenly overheated: sediment had clogged the cooling line, and the team could not clear the blockage. The engine cut out, leaving only the rustle of reeds, the gurgle of slow-moving water, and the calls of birds hanging in the air.

Notably, the area remains remarkably clean, free of plastic pollution and aluminum cans; the only trace of outside human activity so far had been the stray fishing net that caught in our propeller. The stench of rotting fish faded as we moved deeper, and we saw far fewer dead fish floating on the surface. On the muddy bank, the soldiers spotted jaguar tracks — they had seen other big cat signs in the reeds earlier in the day. We transferred to a small rescue dinghy while the team worked to swap out the disabled engine, and after several attempts we managed to get a weak enough cell signal to call our destination camp on the coast and share our location to request assistance. We tied our disabled boat across the canal to take shelter in the shade of two remaining trees on opposite banks, broke out our snacks, and shared water, bananas and sweet buns while we waited. Before long, the backup team arrived in a larger boat carrying a replacement engine, we transferred to the rescue craft, and continued on to the coastal camp.

Nestled among reeds, dead trees and surviving vegetation, a small basic camp has been set up on an elevated patch of ground in the blazing sun. For 18 days, a handful of military personnel have lived and worked here, on a mission to plant 12,000 mangrove seedlings to begin repairing the damage the entrepreneur’s unregulated canal caused. The saplings, donated by multinational energy firm Total Energies, traveled hundreds of kilometers from the Coronie region to reach the swamp: first by container to the dam, then along the same difficult route we had taken, transported in small batches because the low water levels limit what a single boat can carry, slowing progress to a crawl.

Seedlings are transported along the irrigation canal to the dam, where they are reloaded onto smaller craft for the final trip into Climbing Creek. Even at the dam, we saw hundreds of already dried-out dead saplings. Poor preparation and poor soil quality for the initial staging killed the young plants before they could even be planted. The soldiers, who have experience with similar mangrove restoration projects and detailed knowledge of mangrove ecology, were able to clearly explain what went wrong, and which remaining saplings still have a chance of survival. They note that better inter-agency communication could have prevented this waste of money, resources and effort. It remains a tragedy that hundreds of dead seedlings are now buried at the mouth of the canal.

The coastal plain is the final destination for the surviving seedlings; the team hopes a full mangrove forest will establish itself here within a few years, helping to slow saltwater intrusion and restore the wetland ecosystem. The camp is extremely basic, covered by a single tarpaulin divided into sleeping and cooking areas. Drinking water is scarce, because low water levels make resupply runs difficult. Soldiers bathe and do laundry using the brackish canal water. From the camp, the trip to the coastal planting site is even more difficult. For days on end, the men haul saplings to the planting sites, a physically grueling task that relies on primitive wooden sleds to carry small batches of seedlings over dry, exposed ground. Water levels have receded so far that the trip cannot be done by boat, but mangrove roots cannot tolerate being waterlogged during the early planting phase, so the dry, muddy ground is actually the ideal condition for young saplings to take root.

*Indra Toelsie
(Conclusion to be published tomorrow)*