Lençóis Maranhenses National Park (''Parque Nacional dos Lençóis Maranhenses'') is a
national park
A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...
in
Maranhão
Maranhão () is a state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of . Clockwise from north, it borders on the Atlantic Ocean for 2,243 km and the states of Piauí, Tocantins and ...
state in northeastern
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, just east of the
Baía de São José
The Baía de São José () is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean in the state of Maranhão in northeastern Brazil.
The bay is an estuary which receives several rivers, including the Itapecuru and Munim.
São Luís Island, also known as Maranhão Islan ...
. Protected on June 2, 1981, the park includes of coastline, and an interior composed of rolling sand dunes. During the rainy season, the valleys among the dunes fill with freshwater lagoons, prevented from draining due to the impermeable rock beneath. The park is home to a range of species, including four
listed as endangered, and has become a popular destination for
ecotourists.
Physical geography
The park is located on the northeastern coast of Brazil in the state of Maranhão along the eastern coast, bordered by of beaches along the Atlantic Ocean.
Inland, it is bordered by the
Parnaíba River
The Parnaíba River ( pt, Rio Parnaíba) is a river in Brazil, which forms the border between the states of Maranhão and Piauí. Its main course is long and the Parnaíba River Basin covers .Ramos, T.P.A.; Ramos, R.T.C.; and Ramos, S.A.Q.A. (2 ...
, the
São José Basin, and the rivers of
Itapecuru,
Munim, and
Periá.
The park encompasses an area of , composed mainly of expansive coastal dune fields (composed of barchanoid dunes), which formed during the late
Quaternary period
The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...
.
While much of the park has the appearance of a desert, the area receives about of rain per year, while deserts, by definition, receive less than annually.
About 70% of this rainfall occurs between the months of January and May.
The sand is carried to the park from the interior of the continent by the Parnaíba and
Preguiças rivers, where it is then driven back inland up to by winds, creating a series of sand dunes rising as much as tall.
During the rainy season, between the months of January and June, the rainstorms fill the spaces among the dunes with fresh water lagoons of up to in length and in depth, and together comprising as much as 41% of the area of the park.
The water in the lagoons is prevented from draining by a layer of impermeable rock located beneath the sandy surface.
The lagoons typically have a temperature between and ,
pH of between 4.9 and 6.2, and low levels of dissolved nutrients.
When the dry season returns, the pools quickly evaporate, losing as much as of depth per month.
In the interior of the park are located two oases or
restingas
Restingas () are a distinct type of coastal tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forest in eastern Brazil. They form on sandy, acidic, and nutrient-poor soils, and are characterized by medium-sized trees and shrubs adapted to the drier and nu ...
, Queimada do Britos, covering an area of , and Baixa Grande, covering an area of .
The area of the park has an average annual temperature of between and and an annual temperature variation of about 1.1 °C (2 °F).
Ecology
The lagoons in the park are often interconnected with one another, as well as with the rivers that run through the area. They are home to a number of fish and insect species, including the
wolf fish, which burrows down into wet layers of mud and remains dormant during the dry season.
Besides the dunes that form the centerpiece of the park, the ecosystem also includes area of
restinga and
mangrove
A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...
ecosystems.
The park is home to four species listed on the Brazilian List of Endangered Species, the
scarlet ibis
The scarlet ibis (''Eudocimus ruber'') is a species of ibis in the bird family Threskiornithidae. It inhabits tropical South America and part of the Caribbean. In form, it resembles most of the other twenty-seven extant species of ibis, but it ...
(''Eudocimus ruber''), the
neotropical otter (''Lontra longicaudis''), the
oncilla
The oncilla (''Leopardus tigrinus''), also known as the northern tiger cat, little spotted cat, and tigrillo, is a small spotted cat ranging from Central America to central Brazil. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, and the popul ...
(''Leopardus tigrinus'') and the
West Indian manatee
The West Indian manatee (''Trichechus manatus''), also known as the North American manatee, is a large, aquatic mammal native to warm coastal areas of the Caribbean, from the eastern US to northern Brazil. Living alone or in herds, it feeds on un ...
(''Trichechus manatus'').
The park also includes 133 species of plants, 112 species of birds, and at least 42 species of reptiles.
Tourism
![LENCOIS 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/LENCOIS_01.jpg)
Lençóis Maranhenses National Park receives as many as 60,000 visitors a year.
Common activities within the park include surfing, canoeing and horseback riding.
In popular culture
The park was featured in the Brazilian film ''
The House of Sand''.
Kadhal Anukkal
''Enthiran'' is the soundtrack album to the 2010 Tamil cinema, Tamil science fiction film, science fiction-action film Enthiran, of the same name, directed by S. Shankar and starring Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai. The soundtrack album includes s ...
, a song from an Indian
Tamil language
Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory of Pudu ...
film
Enthiran
''Enthiran'' () is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language science fiction action film written and directed by S. Shankar. It is the first instalment in the ''Enthiran'' franchise. The film stars Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan with Danny ...
starring
Rajnikanth
Shivaji Rao Gaikwad (born 12 December 1950), known professionally as Rajinikanth, is an Indian actor, producer and screenwriter. In a career spanning over five decades, he has done 160 films that includes films in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannad ...
and
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan ( Rai; born 1 November 1973) is an Indian actress who is primarily known for her work in Hindi and Tamil films. The winner of the Miss World 1994 pageant, she has established herself as one of the most popular celebriti ...
was also shot here. The films ''
Avengers: Infinity War'' (2018) and ''
Avengers: Endgame'' (2019) used the park's landscape as the planet of Vormir.
See also
*
Genipabu
Genipabu (or Jenipabu) is a beach with a complex of dunes, a lagoon and an Environmental Protection Area (Brazil), environmental protection area (APA) located close to Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, one of the most famous post-cards of the ...
*
Conservation in Brazil
*
List of national parks of Brazil
National Parks ( pt, Parques nacionais) are a legally-defined type of Protected areas of Brazil, protected area of Brazil.
The first parks were created in the 1930s, and other parks were gradually added, typically protecting a natural monument s ...
Notes
References
External links
Lençóis Maranhenses National Park's Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lencois Maranhenses National Park
National parks of Brazil
Protected areas of Maranhão
Protected areas established in 1981