Travel to Rupununi Savanna

The Rupununi covers approximately 13,000 square kilometers of tropical grassland in southwestern Guyana. The Iwokrama rainforest rises to the north and the Kanuku Mountains bisect the region east to west, dividing the wetland-dominated North from the open savannas of the South. Gallery forests line the river courses and granite outcrops rise from the grass like forested islands.

Wildlife diversity here is exceptional. Giant anteaters are regularly spotted in open savanna around Dadanawa and Wichabai. Jaguars and pumas patrol the riverine forests. Giant river otters fish the Rupununi and Rewa in family groups. Black caiman reach 4 meters or more, and arapaima, one of the world’s largest scaled freshwater fish, share the same waterways. An estimated 500 bird species have been recorded, roughly 60 percent of Guyana’s birds, including harpy eagles, jabiru storks, sunbitterns, and the red siskin rediscovered here in 2000.

The Wapishana and Makushi peoples have lived across the Rupununi for thousands of years, managing resources through seasonal movements, controlled burning, and fishing with natural plant compounds that stun fish in shallow pools. More than 20 Makushi communities operate through the North Rupununi District Development Board, with another 21 Wapishana-led villages in the South through the South Rupununi District Council, both running community-based tourism and conservation programmes.

A small ranching culture took root in the early 1900s when families like the Melvilles and McTurks established the first major cattle operations. Dadanawa Ranch, which traces its origins to an 1865 trading post and was incorporated as the Rupununi Development Company in 1919, remains one of the largest single contiguous cattle ranches in South America. The vaqueros who work its herds represent a blend of indigenous, Afro-Guyanese, and European heritage. Working ranches today double as wildlife lodges, hosting mustering rides, wildlife tracking, and meals with families whose ties to this land span generations.

Each year between May and August, heavy rains transform the Rupununi into a different landscape. The Rupununi River spills its banks, wetland basins refill, and vast areas of the northern savanna become shallow seasonal lakes navigable by canoe. Fish populations expand as species move out of their dry-season pools and into the flooded grasslands to breed. Caiman, giant otters, black skimmers, and enormous concentrations of wading birds follow the fish. Jabiru storks, roseate spoonbills, and scarlet ibis gather in numbers that draw birders from around the world.

The flood season also activates one of the most unusual hydrological features on the continent. At Pirara, a low wetland divide just inside the Brazilian border, the headwaters of the Essequibo River (which drains north to the Atlantic through Guyana) and the Ireng and Branco system (which drains south into the Amazon via Brazil) meet in a single plain. During peak floods, water can physically cross between the two drainages, briefly linking Guyana’s savanna ecosystem to the greater Amazon basin. Fish migrations pass both ways, which is part of what explains the extraordinary aquatic biodiversity of the Rupununi River system.