By Thierry Montford
Friday11 January2013
My grandfather told the story of Tulupele, the giant caterpillar. The Wayana and the Apalaï wanted to go to rock Asimiliku, but whenever one of them left he was said...
Par la rédaction
Thursday1 November2012
This is the first time I have ever felt the cold in Guiana. At an altitude of 2,800 metres the first rays of the sun just barely warm our layers...
By Pierre-Olivier Jay / Remerciements à Laurence Jay & Elio Sanoja
Monday9 April2012
“Each minute that goes by only strengthens my determination to escape, despite all the possible dangers. We are too young and too full of determination to allow our future to...
By Denis Lamaison
Monday9 April2012
Cayenne fishmarket. Snapper: 6 euros 50. “Are you the one who caught it, or did you buy it?” The seller hesitates before answering: “I bought it. From Cogumer.” Cogumer and...
By C. Aubinais et Mathilde Bachelet
Monday9 April2012
Hugo El loco Wikileaks reveals the astounding and unexpected information that liberal democracies do not like Hugo Chávez! Alvaro Uribe, the former Colombian President, compared him to Hitler, whilst Jean-David...
By Denis Lamaison
Monday9 April2012
Whilst man has not yet settled the question to his satisfaction, for the howler monkey it is clearly essence which precedes existence. The character and innermost nature of the red...
By Tanguy DEVILLE et Guillaume FEUILLET
Monday9 April2012
Overfishing: worldwide depletion of fish stocks Pessimistic models predict a catastrophic drop in stocks. After a period of strong growth after the Second World War, fish production has stagnated around...
By Fabian Blanchard (Ifremer Guyane) et du CRPMEM Guyane.
Monday9 April2012
At the break of dawn, and amidst many multicoloured wooden two-mast tapouilles facing the Mahury, we get on board the launch to Grand Connétable island nature reserve. Today we are...
By Antoine Hauselmann, conservateur de la RN du Grand Connétable
Monday9 April2012
Marine biodiversity issues at stake With 11 million square kilometres of territorial waters, France has the second largest maritime area in the world, spread over four different oceans: the Atlantic,...
By Marion Brichet (Agence des Aires Marines Protégées)
Monday9 April2012
Seabird guano has long been used as an agricultural fertiliser, probably since pre-Columbian days. This fertiliser, containing all sorts of organic materials, among which animal bones, was very widely used...
By Texte de Pierre Rostan Bureau d’études géologiques IDM - Thethys
Monday9 April2012
For a long while the oil* buried deep beneath the ocean bed seemed to be impossible to exploit for two main reasons: firstly because existing technologies did not make it...
By Hadrien Le Texier & Manuel Parizot
Monday9 April2012
Baikonur. 21st century. 7.30am. Daybreak was well over an hour ago, though the sun is as red as at sunset. Together with his fellow Europeans, Rémy, a Frenchman, is getting...
Perhaps you have already noticed the colourful mobiles levitating above Rorota. But who are the people who, come the weekend, enjoy the beach 300 metres up in the air? A...
By Jonas Kill-Nielsen
Monday9 April2012
11 kilometres north-west of Cayenne, a light suspended between the water and the sky sweeps its beam across the ocean. This is the Enfant Perdu lighthouse. Seen from the continent,...
By
philb Monday9 April2012
A long time ago when all the animals in the forest were friends, they used to get together to talk. Jaguar and Giant Anteater were among the animals. One day...
By Jean-Albert Hilaire
Monday22 October2012
Landscape archaeology combines various ways of studying the environment and apprehends the natural habitat as a territory that has been populated, transformed, and farmed according to the specific needs of...
By Lydie Clerc Université Paris 1 / CNRS
Wednesday17 October2012
“Watch over your brothers and let them settle” Elia Kazan, America America Emigrating and immigrating is a four-stage process: leaving, crossing the border, then entering and, finally, moving around. It...
By Par Fréderic Piantoni
Sunday14 October2012
“I had the misfortune of not thinking like the powerful, of not adhering to their opinions, or their orders. This was the full extent of my crime.” Pierre Vaux, Cayenne, 16th...
By Denis Lamaison
Sunday8 April2012
On the site We went to meet Mariana Petry Cabral and João Darcy de Moura Saldanha on site. The two archaeologists from the Institute for Scientific and Technological Research in...
Par la rédaction
Sunday8 April2012
“Crowned mountain is the name given by the Saramacas to these relics which are hard to explain”. This phrase, written by in 1952, was Emile Abonnenc’s first observation about the...
By Mickaël Mestre
Sunday8 April2012
Beyond the mangrove forests, vast savannahs which are flooded with the turning of the seasons, lies the Guiana coastline, stretching nearly 1600km from the mouth of the Amazon to the...
By Delphine Renard
Sunday8 April2012
A few kilometres upstream from the town of Saint-Georges-de-l’Oyapock , a series of events relating to the recent pre-Colombian history of the Guianas have been brought to light by excavations...
By Mickaël Mestre et Matthieu Hildebrand (Inrap)
Sunday8 April2012
23 january 2010, 9AM, mOUNT Kaw Two volunteers from the Group for the Study and Protection of Birds in French Guiana (GEPOG, ‘Groupe d’Etude et de Protection des Oiseaux en...
By Thomas Luglia - GEPOG
Sunday8 April2012
Some animal species interest the general public, and not just the reduced circle of keen nature lovers. There are a large number of such charismatic animals; any list of them...
By Guillaume Feuillet – Association Kwata
Sunday8 April2012
“Few industries have prospered so rapidly as alluvial gold dredging; whilst twenty-odd years ago there were only a few rudimentary attempts, it is now a prosperous industry contributing each day...
By Pierre Rostan, Bureau d’Études Géologiques TETHYS
Sunday8 April2012
What environmental impact does it have ? How can sites be regenerated ? French Guiana has considerable gold potential. The discovery of gold around 1850 resulted in a “gold rush”...
By Alain Coppel (ONF), Stephane Guitet (ONF) , Olivier Brunaux (ONF), Eudoxie Jantet (Atelier Aymara), Delphine Miau (CAEX GEO), Nicolas Miramond (DIREN).
Sunday8 April2012
The tale of a few grams of gold and how it passes from a covert placer mine to Brazil through the informal economy before ending up in a jewellers’ via...
By Romain Taravella & Laurent Marot.
Sunday8 April2012
“It took us just over two hours to reach the summit,” shouts Nicolas as the helicopter blades disappear in a growing roar. Nicolas, the Ecology Officer with the Amazon Park...
By Pierre-Olivier Jay & Lise Landrin.
Sunday8 April2012
Five of us, all novices, had set off up the Sinnamary accompanied by an Amazonian guide to learn about angling for wolf fish. We met up at the Petit Saut...
By Christelle Delgrange et Christian Roudgé
Sunday8 April2012
The seventy-six-year-old Mr. Ya Saï Po arrived in French Guiana with the first Hmong refugees and is now the last skilled craftsmen to forge traditional Hmong knives. We met him...
By Propos recueillis par Christelle Delgrange, traduction Tchia Le Vessier
Sunday8 April2012
The settlement of the Guianas started in the Paleo-Indian period, although there is no direct archaeological proof making it possible to specify exactly when this took place. The climate conditions...
By Matthieu Hildebrand, Eric Gassies / Carte M. Hildebrand / Infographie Atelier Aymara
Sunday8 April2012
The French National Forestry Office (ONF) is a public agency. As part of its sustainable management of public forests it draws up forest management plans covering a 20 to 30...
By Office National des Forêts Guyane
Monday14 January2013
In 1887 the affair attracted a fair few pages in the Parisian press. Jules Gros, who lived in the suburbs of Paris in Vanves and was a popular novelist and...
Par la rédaction
Sunday19 February2012
An international eco-label The Ramsar Convention on wetlands is an intergovernmental treaty that was adopted on 2 February 1971 at Ramsar in Iran. It now concerns over 160 countries, including...
By Par Mathieu Entraygues
Sunday19 February2012
By
NateKo Sunday19 February2012
Par la rédaction
Sunday19 February2012
Day 1 Five years later and we are back at Rochambeau airport ready for a second expedition. Two helicopter trips take our team of six adventurers and two guides to...
Saint-Georges de l’Oyapock – Santana Christmas! We’re going to be spending Christmas in Brazil. Rio ? Salvador? No, in Counani! A tiny little quilombo* lost on the equator. It is the...
By Dario & Marc Gayot, Pierre-Olivier Jay, Denis Lamaison, Hélène Lamaison, Marie-Claire Parriault, Christian Roudgé. Remerciements à Alessandro de Sousa Alencar
Sunday19 February2012
“They look prehistoric!” The startled observers of sea turtles on the beaches of French Guiana are closer to the truth than they realise. The first forms of sea turtle appeared...
Par la rédaction
Sunday19 February2012
In the late eighteenth century the chiefs of the Aluku and Boni tribes at the head of a small group of Maroon slaves left the region of the Cottica River...
Par la rédaction
Sunday19 February2012
The Bushinenge (the word comes from the name Bush Negroes), still called ‘Maroons’, are the descendants of African slaves who fled the colonial plantations in Suriname and took refuge in...
By M-P Jean-Louis - Conservateur du Musée des cultures guyanaises
Sunday19 February2012
You could call him “the last of the Saramaka”, though in fact he is better known by the name of Papa Taki, and the final survivor of a period when...
By M.Bachelet
Sunday19 February2012
After having been to Kenya (2007) and India (2004), the World Social Forum was back in Brazil for 2009, the country where it was held for the very first time...
By Flacher, Utopia / Pauline Lavaud - France Libertés - Fondation Danielle Mitterrand / Sailesh Gya / Sailesh Gya / Daphné Borel
Sunday19 February2012
What is the current state of knowledge about the role the Forest of French Guiana plays in the carbon cycle? Climate change in French Guiana Planetary warming is a reality...
By D.Bonal - INRA, L.Blanc - CIRAD, J.Demenois - ONF International
Sunday19 February2012
Trees in Amazonia tend to flower annually and often at a very precise moment. This happens at the same period year after year, with all the trees in a single...
By Tanguy Deville
Sunday19 February2012
THE FIRST MAROONS The Aluku are one of six groups of Maroons living in French Guiana and Suriname. They are the descendents of slaves who escaped from the Dutch plantations...
By Marie Fleury - Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle.
Sunday19 February2012
At dawn on Tuesday 12 August 2008 our little team left Cayenne in a heavily laden 4×4. We were setting off to discover the neighbouring Guianas and our end goal...
By Alexandre Roche - Marie Claire Parriault - Pierre-Olivier Jay
Sunday5 February2012
Perhaps you have already met him. An unusual slender figure picking up the leaves around the Place des Palmistes. But for him they are not just leaves. The Roystonea regia...
By Stana Sampson
Sunday5 February2012
The walker looks up, alerted by a series of “How! How! How!” and the rustling of leaves. Dark humanoid figures rapidly disappear across the treetops. They must be monkeys. At...
Par la rédaction
Sunday5 February2012
The Cayenne peninsular is a geological exception on the Amazonian coast, as it is one of the rare rocky outcrops to be found between the estuaries of the Amazon and...
By Par Mathieu Entraygues
Sunday5 February2012
Oyapock is an Amerindian name and one that is redolent of adventure. It well suits this account of the journey up the river where everything changed the moment we passed...
By Philippe Gilabert
Sunday5 February2012
November 2008, along the Courouaïe river, 30km downstream from Régina. We are in the middle of an old colonial plantation, La Constance, in the district of Régina-Kaw. Beneath the foliage...
By Philippe Goergen, conservateur du patrimoine au C2RMF (Centre de Recherches et de Restaurations des Musées de France, Paris) Damien Hanriot, attaché de conservation du patrimoine à la Mairie de Régina-Kaw, responsable de l’Écomusée municipal d’Approuague-Kaw, Régina
Sunday5 February2012
Par la rédaction
Sunday5 February2012
By Gwenael Quenette
Sunday5 February2012
The slopes of higher ground between the coastal plains of the Amazon and the Orinoco are home to one of the last areas of primal forest along the coastal strip....
By Bertrand Goguillon - Conservateur de la Réserve Naturelle du Mont Grand Matoury, Office National des Forêts Jeanne da Silveira, Mairie de Matoury
Sunday5 February2012
A coast subject to influence Though it is not part of the drainage basin of the Amazon, the Guiana Shield region and especially its coastal strip are still influenced by...
By M. Parizot – P.O. Jay – R. Goeury – G. Debarros Images CNES/Distribution Spot Image / Traitement SEAS Guyane
Sunday29 January2012
From the estuary of the Amazon in Brazil as far as the Cayenne peninsular in French Guiana there are a large number of wetlands lying behind the mangrove forests in...
By Mathieu Luglia, Eric Vidal, Daniel Guiral – Institut Méditerranéen d’Ecologie et de Paléoécologie, Thomas Luglia - GEPOG
Sunday29 January2012
French Guiana has a special place in the French national imagination. It is seen as a coveted yet hostile land which saw off early attempts to colonise it. Or a...
By C.Giroud,P.O.Jay, F.Auclaire
Thursday10 January2013
Welcome to the country of land and water “In the beginning Kuyuli created the world, with birds in the sky, fish in the water, and snakes and men on firm...
By Dominique Maison
Thursday10 January2013
This is a story of an airborne voyage, following in the footsteps of the earliest flights in French Guinea nearly a century ago, the first of which were performed by...
Par la rédaction
Sunday29 January2012
A nature reserve encloses a space with a remarkable natural heritage (an original natural environment, the habitat of a rare plant or animal species, or the presence of geological or...
By Guilhem Debarros
Sunday29 January2012
French Guiana is a secretive and rugged place, as well as being home to the land of some arresting personalities. One such person is SUSKY, pilot, artist, adventure, and freethinker....
By A.R
Sunday29 January2012
The wealth of plant life in French Guiana leads a certain number of new arrivals to become interested in botany. The fascinating and majestic trees arouse people’s curiosity and are...
By Gwenael Quenette
Sunday29 January2012
Imagine for a moment what the Amazonian forest would look like if the tapir was completely eradicated. How would this immense tropical rainforest evolve were this peaceful herbivore – and...
By M.Gosset,C Richard-Hansen,B.deThoisy, S. Barrioz, J.F. Szpiegel
Sunday29 January2012
Par la rédaction
Sunday29 January2012
Remote sensing techniques used to save the Amazonian environment The situation in Amazonia and the urgent need to work with reliable environmental information have made it necessary for scientific research...
By Jean-Marie Fotsing, directeur du centre IRD de Cayenne , Laurence Besançon
Sunday29 January2012
The mist is beginning to disperse, allowing a few patches of blue sky to peep through. It is the beginning of a fine morning on Montagne Trésor, a few peaks...
By Vincent Pelletier, bagueur-collaborateur du CRBPO/Muséum national d’histoire naturelle de Paris, co-responsable de la station STOC-Trésor, vice-président du GEPOG ; Christian Roudgé, chargé de mission au GEPOG.
Sunday29 January2012
Saül is already nearly 100 years old. The village sprang up due to gold mining, but intends to outlive it. It lies at the geographical centre of French Guiana, where...
By Marc Gayot
Sunday29 January2012
107mm in 24 hours. That is the enormous quantity of water that fell on Cayenne on 17 January last. That gives an idea of how appropriate the adjective ‘humid’ is...
By Manuel Parizot, Kevin Pineau
Sunday29 January2012
The Wayana are one of the Amerindian communities to be found in French Guiana. They live in the south-west of the territory around Maripasoula. It is estimated that there is...
By Marie Fleury, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle
Sunday29 January2012
French Guiana’s coastline is over 300 kilometres long and made up primarily of all but inaccessible virgin mangrove forests, with the exception of a few rocky outcrops which have been...
By Conservatoire du littoral de Guyane - Conception graphique Sylvétude ONF
Sunday22 January2012