• Mennonite families in Belize could pay millions to settle on around 24,000 hectares (59,300 acres) in Para, Suriname, a district with around 90% forest cover.
• Community leaders from Shipyard and Indian Creek, Belize, have taken multiple trips to Suriname to analyze soil quality and learn about the country’s farming regulations. Members from Spanish Lookout, another Mennonite community, have also started looking into a Suriname relocation.
• The move is being facilitated by Braganza Marketing Group, run by Ruud Souverein, a Dutch national living in Suriname who was involved in a previously failed government program to bring Mennonites from Bolivia in 2023.
• Environmental groups have expressed concern about Mennonites’ tendencies to expand into forested areas, circumvent environmental regulations, and settle on land without proper titles.

“If everything was virgin forest and intact — no food, you’d go hungry tonight.”

“There has to be a balance.”

Food forests are the balance.