Rupununi

The name Rupununi originates from the word rapon in the Makushi language, in which it means the black-bellied whistling duck found along the river.

During the rainy season it is connected to the Takutu River by the flooded Pirara Creek, draining the vast swamps of the Parima or Amaku Lake.

The region surrounding the Rupununi river is composed of mainly savannah, wetlands, forest, and low mountain ranges.

To the north of the Takutu Graben almost flat lying Statherian sandstones and conglomerates of the Roraima Group sediments overly Iwokrama Formation felsic volcanics and associated Orosirian granites.

[2] Relict Hadean zircons (xenocrysts) in the Iwokrama Formation suggest that older crust must occur at depth.

A 253,800 ha site in the south central Rupununi catchment has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports a population of red siskins.

In another study conducted by the BAT (South Rupununi Biodiversity Assessment Team), it was discovered that 34 different species[5] of reptiles were living along the river.

The black caiman is the largest predator in the Rupununi, measuring up to 5 m in length, however it has become endangered due to hunting for their belly skins throughout the 1930s - 1970s.

The Makushi migrated from what is now known as modern Brazil and Venezuela, to the northern areas of the Rupununi river, over four-hundred years ago.

[1] The Makushi Amerindians continue to live in the Rio Branco savannahs and northern Rupununi, surviving off of the abundance of fish, wildlife and forest resources of the area.

Sir Walter Raleigh claimed that the Rupununi was where the famed El Dorado was situated, however he never explored the river.

Exploiting the Rupununi's resources through corporate agriculture, mining and petroleum extraction are potential pathways that Guyana could undertake.

Near to Karanambu is the ecolodge Caiman House, a social enterprise that drives revenue to a public library, raising the pass rate into secondary school from near-zero in 2005 to 86% in 2019.