Environment - current issues: deforestation as timber is cut for export; pollution of inland waterways by small-scale mining activities
Environment - international agreements:
party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered
Species, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone
Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
Geography - note:
smallest independent country on South American continent; mostly
tropical rain forest; great diversity of flora and fauna that, for
the most part, is increasingly threatened by new development;
relatively small population, mostly along the coast
People Suriname
Population:
435,449 (July 2003 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 30.7% (male 68,536; female 65,165)
15-64 years: 63.3% (male 141,048; female 134,699)
65 years and over: 6% (male 11,686; female 14,315) (2003 est.)
Median age:
total: 25.5 years
male: 25.1 years
female: 26 years (2002)
Population growth rate:
0.37% (2003 est.)
Birth rate:
19.4 births/1,000 population (2003 est.)
Death rate:
6.83 deaths/1,000 population (2003 est.)