Surama Village is a founding member of Community and Tourism Services, Inc. (CATS). CATS is a unique partnership formed between Surama and Rock View Lodge, Wilderness Explorers, and the Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development. CATS jointly operates the Atta Rainforest Lodge at the Iwokrama Canopy Walkway. The CATS partnership is a model of ecotourism that proves the tourism sector, a conservation NGO, and an indigenous community can find joint economic success while providing local opportunity and an excellent experience for visitors from around the world.
Wilderness Explorers promises to promote ecologically sensitive tourism through a responsible and concerned attitude towards the environment. We provide the maximum benefit to the local communities by operating in a honest, thoughtful and concerned manner towards their customs and involving the communities so as to afford them the greatest financial benefit possible. At the same time we offer professional tourism services of an international standard to our clientele.
The Rock View Lodge was conceived by Colin Edwards, an Englishman who has been closely associated with Guyana since he came here as an agricultural volunteer in 1969. He purchased the old ranch of Rock View from the Fredericks family in 1992, who had been rearing cattle here since 1969. Nestled between the Amerindian villages of Annai and Rupertee where the Pakaraima foothills meet the tropical rainforest, Rock View Lodge offers comfortable lodging, outdoor and cultural activities, authentic Amerindian hospitality, and access to everything else that central Guyana has to offer
In 1989, the government of Guyana offered to set aside 3,600 square kilometres (36000 hectares) of lush, pristine tropical rainforest to be used as a demonstration area where the ecological, social, and economic potential of tropical rain forests could be studied and tested. The Iwokrama River Lodge - situated at the Iwokrama Field Station aong the edge of the Essequibo River - welcomes guests, researchers, and international conservation leaders alike.
