Karanambu’s Karanambo-1 struck crude in 1982 and proved it worthless days later. In 2025, geologist Ygor Sousa struck oil at 17 meters in the Rupununi, on the floodplain that gives Karanambu its name. Then two water wells 30 meters apart confirmed the find. He classified it as shallow migration and seepage, its commercial value highly…
Siting, ownership, and processing now decide everything. Santa Fe has settled whether farming can scale. In the North Rupununi, a single large, mechanized farm operates on an 11,700-hectare (29,000-acre) lease, has prepared 3,200 hectares (8,000 acres) for rice cultivation, exported more than 12,000 tons of paddy rice to Brazil, and has expanded into soy and…
A permanent access regime rewrites power before transport. A paved road in a tropical wetland does more than move vehicles. It redirects water, raises land prices, opens forest interiors, and changes who can enter and stay. In the Florida Everglades, the Tamiami Trail severed sheet flow into Shark River Slough. In the Brazilian Amazon, BR-319…
Start with livelihoods, rights, and river health. In Guyana’s Rupununi, a living river means fish move with the floods, wildlife returns, and families can earn from nature-based work. Yet rivers also carry hidden risks. Pollution can move through fish and up the food chain. When it builds in top predators, it warns of trouble for…
In early 2024, Roraima declared a humanitarian emergency due to drought, and more than 4,000 fires broke out at once. Key rivers fell to historic lows, including the Rio Branco, which reached -15 centimeters. The same Rupununi–Roraima corridor links Guyana’s Rupununi with Brazil’s Roraima across savannahs, wetlands, and floodplains. Because of that, everyday systems—river travel,…
An oil boom meets a flood-pulse ecosystem Guyana’s 2015 offshore oil discovery has unleashed an extraordinary commodity boom, making roads, large-scale agriculture, and mining realities for the Rupununi. As in all past LAC commodity booms — studied in depth at The Next Wave — national decision-makers face a core challenge: how to capture the windfall…
