Qualla: Altamiro de Moura Pacheco State Park

Altamiro de Moura Pacheco State Park: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rafaela Chadud, CC BY-SA 3.0. Giant anteaters still shuffle through the dry forest here, and maned wolves leave their unmistakable long-legged tracks on the red paths. That a pocket of wilderness like this survives within commuting distance of a Brazilian state capital of 1.5 million is a small miracle - and a deliberate act. The Altamiro de Moura Pacheco State Park protects what remains of central Goiás's dry forest and, just as importantly, keeps the João Leite Reservoir from being choked by erosion. The trees guard the water. The water keeps the city alive.

Image: Rafaela Chadud | CC BY-SA 3.0

Altamiro de Moura Pacheco State Park: A Seasonal Forest

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. This is not the Amazon and it is not quite cerrado either. The dominant vegetation is seasonal semi-deciduous forest, a transition ecosystem that drops some of its canopy during the long dry winter and explodes back into green when the November rains arrive. Botanists have catalo...

Image: Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Altamiro de Moura Pacheco State Park: The Creatures Who Stayed

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rafaela Chadud, CC BY-SA 3.0. Over 290 animal species have been identified in the park, including three that carry the weight of Brazilian cerrado conservation on their backs. The giant anteater - Myrmecophaga tridactyla - lumbers through the leaf litter on its knuckles, flicking its long tongue into termite ...

Image: Rafaela Chadud | CC BY-SA 3.0

Altamiro de Moura Pacheco State Park: A Village Before the Parks

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rafaela Chadud, CC BY-SA 3.0. Long before any state decree drew lines on the map, people lived here. Archaeologists found the site of a pre-colonial village within the park's current boundaries, occupied roughly from 500 to 1500 AD by people associated with the southern Kayapó community or at least the Aratu ...

Image: Rafaela Chadud | CC BY-SA 3.0

Altamiro de Moura Pacheco State Park: The Reservoir That Rewrote the Park

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rafaela Chadud, CC BY-SA 3.0. The park's history is tangled with the João Leite Reservoir, the project that supplies water to more than one million people in metropolitan Goiânia. The original state park, created in 1991 under a different name, got carved up in 1994 when part of its land was flooded for the r...

Image: Rafaela Chadud | CC BY-SA 3.0

Altamiro de Moura Pacheco State Park: Trails and Time

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adelano Lázaro, Public domain. Visitors who come here will find a working park rather than a manicured one. Highway BR-153 runs right through it, which is disorienting at first - a major federal road cutting across what the signs call a protected area. But step off the road onto the 17-kilometer Lago Trail, or...

Image: Adelano Lázaro | Public domain