Uncertainty mounts as Suriname struggles to evict illegal settlers in the Amazon

Suriname's government set up a task force to evict illegal settlers, many of them Mennonite farming families recruited from Belize and Bolivia, who've been clearing primary rainforest the country pledged to keep at 90% forest cover. Eviction notices went out as recently as July, yet settlers interviewed by local media deny receiving them and continue working the land, some having paid hundreds of dollars per hectare through community leaders known as a Vorsteher.

Lawmakers touring the settlements say they don't know how many families have arrived, where exactly they're settling, who approved their entry, or what the eviction notices actually require. One opposition leader is now forming an independent parliamentary group because he doesn't trust the president's own task force to explain its own actions.

The government maintains an alternative is available along the already-degraded coast, assuming newcomers are willing to relocate there instead, a plan that depends on a level of coordination the current effort hasn't managed to demonstrate.

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