The Grande Sertão Veredas National Park ( pt, Parque Nacional Grande Sertão Veredas) is a national park located on the border between the states of

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literally ...

and

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro) and the 5th-largest b ...

, Brazil.

Location

The park is in the

Cerrado The ''Cerrado'' (, ) is a vast ecoregion of tropical savanna in eastern Brazil, particularly in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Minas Gerais, and the Federal District. The core areas of the Cerrado biome are the ...

biome. It covers an area of 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 was created by decree nº 97.658 of 12 April 1989, revised on 21 May 2004. It is in the municipality of Formoso, Minas Gerais. Altitude ranges from . Annual rainfall averages . Temperature ranges from with average . The park contains forests, savannah, cerrado and dense cerrado. There are extensive streams (''veredas'') which can form oxbow lakes or larger rivers. The terrain contains extensive sandstone plateaus covered in savannah vegetation with lower drainage areas holding the streams. The park contains much of the upper basin of the

Carinhanha River The Carinhanha River ( pt, Rio Carinhanha) is a river of Bahia and Minas Gerais states in eastern Brazil. See also *List of rivers of Bahia *List of rivers of Minas Gerais ReferencesBrazilian Ministry of Transport
Rivers of Bahia Rivers of ...

and of the sub-basins of its tributaries such as the Itaguari, Mato Grande, Preto and Canabrava.

Conservation

The park is classed 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). As a national park it has the basic objectives of preserving natural ecosystems of great ecological relevance and scenic beauty, enabling scientific research, environmental education, outdoor recreation and eco-tourism. Specifically the park aims to preserve the basin of the

, an important tributary of the São Francisco River, to preserve the streams and landscape described in the novel

The Devil to Pay in the Backlands ''The Devil to Pay in the Backlands'' (, "Great Backcountry, Backlands: Paths"; also translated as ''The Great Backlands and Their Paths'') is a novel published in 1956 by the Brazilian literature, Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa. The ...

(in Portuguese ''Grande Sertão: Veredas'') by

João Guimarães Rosa João Guimarães Rosa (; 27 June 1908 – 19 November 1967) was a Brazilian novelist, short story writer and diplomat. Rosa only wrote one novel, '' Grande Sertão: Veredas'' (known in English as ''The Devil to Pay in the Backlands''), a revoluti ...

, and also to preserve the flora and endemic fauna of the Cerrado. Protected species in the park include the

maned wolf The maned wolf (''Chrysocyon brachyurus'') is a large canine of South America. It is found in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, and Paraguay, and is almost extinct in Uruguay. Its markings resemble those of foxes, but it is neither a fox nor a w ...

(''Chrysocyon brachyurus''), jaguar (''Panthera onca''), cougar (''Puma concolor''), ocelot (''Leopardus pardalis''),

colocolo The Pampas cat (''Leopardus colocola'') is a small wild cat native to South America. It is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List as habitat conversion and destruction may cause the population to decline in the future. It is named after ...

(''Leopardus colocolo''),

Brazilian merganser The Brazilian merganser (''Mergus octosetaceus'') is a South American diving duck in the Mergus genus. It is one of the six most threatened waterfowl in the world, with possibly fewer than 250 birds in the wild and a few kept in captivity in ...

(''Mergus octosetaceus''),

marsh deer The marsh deer (''Blastocerus dichotomus'') is the largest deer species from South America reaching a length of and a shoulder height of . It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Formerly found in much of tropical ...

(''Blastocerus dichotomus''),

giant anteater The giant anteater (''Myrmecophaga tridactyla'') is an insectivorous mammal native to Central and South America. It is one of four living species of anteaters, of which it is the largest member. The only extant member of the genus ''Myrmecophag ...

(''Myrmecophaga tridactyla''), giant armadillo (''Priodontes maximus''), Brazilian three-banded armadillo (''Tolypeutes tricinctus'') and Owl's spiny rat (''Carterodon sulcidens''),. File:Grande Sertao Veredas 2.jpg File:Grande Sertao Veredas 3.jpg File:Veredas.jpg

Notes

Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Grande Sertao Veredas National Park National parks of Brazil Protected areas established in 1989 Protected areas of Bahia Protected areas of Minas Gerais Cerrado