Indigenous World 2020: French Guiana

French Guiana is an overseas department and region of France in South America. It is bordered to the west by Suriname and to the south and east by Brazil. It has a population of 268,700 inhabitants (INSEE, 2017). The interior of the country is covered by dense equatorial forest that is only accessible by plane or canoe along the Maroni River to the west or the Oyapock River to the south-east. Ninety (90) per cent of the territory is owned by the French state, under the system of “terra nullius” that was applied during the colonial era, to the detriment of the Indigenous Peoples who were dispossessed of their lands.