Acknowledgements: Living and conducting research in the forests and mining areas of different countries would not be possible without the hospitality, friendship, and life lessons of many local people. Thank you so much! I also would like to thank many other individuals in Suriname and the Netherlands for their continued advice and support. I am particularly grateful to my daughters Jada and Luna for their cheerful presence when I am at home and flexibility when I am away. I gratefully acknowledge financial support for various aspects of my work of: the National Science Foundation, Division of Cultural Anthropology (grant# 0221646 and grant#9726292); World Wildlife Fund-Guianas; the University of Wisconsin IGERT program (NSF IGERT Grant 9870703), the World Bank Division for Communities and Small Scale Mining (CASM), and the Amazon Conservation Team Suriname