The Grande Sertão Veredas National Park (called Parque Nacional Grande Sertão Veredas in Portuguese) is a protected area found where the states of Minas Gerais and Bahia meet in Brazil.
Location
The park is located in the Cerrado biome. It spans an area of 230,853 hectares (570,450 acres) and is managed by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation. It was established by decree number 97.658 on April 12, 1989, and revised on May 21, 2004. The park is situated in the municipality of Formoso, Minas Gerais. The elevation ranges from 660 to 900 meters (2,170 to 2,950 feet). Annual rainfall averages 1,400 millimeters (55 inches). Temperatures range from 16 to 37 degrees Celsius (61 to 99 degrees Fahrenheit), with an average of 23 degrees Celsius (73 degrees Fahrenheit).
The park includes forests, savannah, cerrado, and dense cerrado. It has many streams (veredas), which can form oxbow lakes or larger rivers. The land features large sandstone plateaus covered with savannah vegetation, and lower areas hold the streams. The park includes much of the upper basin of the Carinhanha River and the sub-basins of its tributaries, such as the Itaguari, Mato Grande, Preto, and Canabrava rivers.
Conservation
The park is categorized as an IUCN protected area category II, which means it is a national park. As a national park, its main goals are to protect natural areas that are important for the environment and have beautiful scenery, to support scientific research, to teach people about the environment, to allow outdoor activities, and to encourage eco-tourism. Specifically, the park works to protect the basin of the Carinhanha River, which is a major branch of the São Francisco River. It also aims to preserve the streams and landscapes described in the novel The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (Grande Sertão: Veredas) by João Guimarães Rosa. Additionally, the park protects the plants and animals that are found only in the Cerrado region.
Some of the protected species in the park include the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), jaguar (Panthera onca), cougar (Puma concolor), ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), colocolo (Leopardus colocolo), Brazilian merganser (Mergus octosetaceus), marsh deer (Blastocerus dichotomus), giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus), Brazilian three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes tricinctus), and Owl's spiny rat (Carterodon sulcidens).