Monte Pascoal National Park ( pt, Parque Nacional e Histórico do Monte Pascoal) 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 the state of

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 Federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo (sta ...

, Brazil.

Location

The National and Historical park is in the

Atlantic Forest The Atlantic Forest ( pt, Mata Atlântica) is a South American forest that extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and th ...

biome. It covers an area of , of which overlaps with the

Barra Velha Barra Velha is a resort town and county seat of about 30,000 inhabitants in the Northern region of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Its nine beaches extend from the Rio Itapocu in the North to the resort town of Piçarras on its Southern border. Additiona ...

indigenous land. It was created by decree 242 of 29 November 1961, modified by decree 3.421 of 20 April 2000, and is administered by the

Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (Portuguese: ''Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade'', ICMBio) is the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment's administrative arm."Brazilian Federal Law 11.516/2007 (Por ...

. It became part of the

Central Atlantic Forest Ecological Corridor The Central Atlantic Forest Ecological Corridor ( pt, Corredor Central da Mata Atlântica is an ecological corridor in the states of Espírito Santo and Bahia, Brazil. It promotes improvements to connectivity between fragments of Atlantic Forest ...

, created in 2002. The reserve covers parts of the municipalities of

Porto Seguro Porto Seguro (, Safe Harbor in English), is a city located in the far south of Bahia, Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin Amer ...

and

Prado The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It migh ...

in the state of Bahia. It is part of the Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves, a group of eight protected areas holding of the Atlantic Forest biome, that has been designated as a

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

. The park contains and takes its name from Monte Pascoal, the first land seen by the Portuguese explorer

Pedro Álvares Cabral Pedro Álvares Cabral ( or ; born Pedro Álvares de Gouveia; c. 1467 or 1468 – c. 1520) was a Portuguese nobleman, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil. He was the first human in ...

Conservation

The park is classified as

IUCN protected area category IUCN protected area categories, or IUCN protected area management categories, are categories used to classify protected areas in a system developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The enlisting of such areas is par ...

II (national park). It has the objectives of preserving natural ecosystems of great ecological relevance and scenic beauty, enabling scientific research, environmental education, outdoors recreation and eco-tourism. Protected birds in the reserve include

red-browed amazon The red-browed amazon (''Amazona rhodocorytha'') is a species of parrot in the family Psittacidae. It is endemic to Atlantic Forest in eastern Brazil. It has been considered a subspecies of the blue-cheeked amazon (''Amazona dufresniana''), bu ...

(''Amazona rhodocorytha''),

white-necked hawk The white-necked hawk (''Buteogallus lacernulatus'') is a Vulnerable species of bird of prey in subfamily Accipitrinae, the "true" hawks, of family Accipitridae. It is endemic to Brazil.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claram ...

(''Buteogallus lacernulatus''), ringed woodpecker (''Celeus torquatus''),

black-headed berryeater The black-headed berryeater (''Carpornis melanocephala'') is a species of bird in the family Cotingidae. It is endemic to Brazil. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It is threatened by habitat loss. Identifi ...

(''Carpornis melanocephala''), red-billed curassow (''Crax blumenbachii''),

banded cotinga The banded cotinga (''Cotinga maculata'') is a species of bird in the family Cotingidae. It is endemic to southeastern Brazil. Its natural habitat is tropical moist lowland forests. It is threatened by habitat loss as its population is estimate ...

(''Cotinga maculata''),

band-tailed antwren The band-tailed antwren (''Myrmotherula urosticta'') is a species of insectivorous bird in the family Thamnophilidae. It is endemic to Brazil. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It is threatened by habitat loss. ...

(''Myrmotherula urosticta'') and the

ochre-marked parakeet The ochre-marked parakeet (''Pyrrhura cruentata'') is a species of parrot native to Brazil. It is also known as blue-throated parakeet and red-eared conure in English and ''tiriba-grande'', ''tiriba'', ''cara-suja'' and ''fura-mato-grande'' in P ...

(''Pyrrhura cruentata''). Other protected species include the

jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus '' Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...

(''Panthera onca''),

cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large Felidae, cat native to the Americas. Its Species distribution, range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mamm ...

(''Puma concolor''),

giant armadillo The giant armadillo (''Priodontes maximus''), colloquially ''tatu-canastra'', ''tatou'', ''ocarro'' or ''tatú carreta'', is the largest living species of armadillo (although their extinct relatives, the Glyptodontidae, glyptodonts, were much l ...

(''Priodontes maximus''), the fish '' Mimagoniates sylvicola'' and the ant ''

Dinoponera lucida ''Dinoponera lucida'' is a large queenless species of ant in the subfamily Ponerinae. The species, endemic to Brazil, is threatened by habitat destruction. Workers range from 27 to 30 mm in body length, which is slightly larger than the r ...

''.

Notes

Sources

* * * * {{authority control 1961 establishments in Brazil National parks of Brazil World Heritage Sites in Brazil Protected areas of Bahia Protected areas established in 1961 Protected areas of the Atlantic Forest