Qualla: Feliciano Miguel Abdala Private Natural Heritage Reserve

Feliciano Miguel Abdala Private Natural Heritage Reserve: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bart vanDorp, CC BY 2.0. In 1944, a man named Feliciano Miguel Abdalla, the son of a Lebanese immigrant, bought a farm in eastern Minas Gerais on one strict condition: he had to preserve the forest that stood on it. At the time, conservation was an alien concept in rural Minas. Settlers were clearing the Atlantic forest as fast as they could swing axes, and the man Abdalla had to face down for decades were not strangers from far away but his neighbors, hunters, and palm-heart harvesters who considered the old forest wasted. He kept his promise anyway, sometimes at risk to his own life. The small patch of forest he protected became one of the last refuges for a species of monkey that once numbered a million.

Image: Bart vanDorp | CC BY 2.0

Feliciano Miguel Abdala Private Natural Heritage Reserve: Fazenda Montes Claros

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bart van Dorp, CC BY 2.0. The property was called Fazenda Montes Claros, and when Abdalla took it on it covered coffee plantations, pasture for cattle, and a substantial stand of mature Atlantic forest. He ran the farm as a working enterprise. Over 20 families lived on the property in houses he provided. ...

Image: Bart van Dorp | CC BY 2.0

Feliciano Miguel Abdala Private Natural Heritage Reserve: The Scientists Arrive

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stephen Davis, CC BY 2.0. By the late 1960s, Abdalla's stubborn preservation had started to attract the attention of outsiders who understood what he had been protecting. Professors Alvaro Aguirre and then Celio Valle introduced the woods to the Brazilian scientific community. In 1977 professor Akira Nish...

Image: Stephen Davis | CC BY 2.0

Feliciano Miguel Abdala Private Natural Heritage Reserve: Muriquis

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Giovanni Mari, CC BY-SA 2.0. When Europeans arrived in Brazil in the 16th century, scientists estimate there were roughly a million northern muriquis ranging through the Atlantic forest. The species is large, loud, and slow to reproduce, and by the end of the 20th century it had been pushed onto the list of ...

Image: Giovanni Mari | CC BY-SA 2.0

Feliciano Miguel Abdala Private Natural Heritage Reserve: From Private Promise to Public Reserve

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gilia Noel, CC BY 2.0. Abdalla died in June 2000 at the age of 92. His family, determined to continue his work, founded a private non-profit called the Sociedade para a Preservacao do Muriqui, Preserve-Muriqui, which still manages the reserve. On September 3, 2001, the Brazilian government formally des...

Image: Gilia Noel | CC BY 2.0

Feliciano Miguel Abdala Private Natural Heritage Reserve: A Forest Among Neighbors

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paulo B. Chaves, CC BY 2.0. The reserve sits on the left bank of the Manhuacu River in the Doce River basin, within the municipality of Caratinga. Its rugged terrain climbs from 318 meters at its lowest points to substantially higher ridges. About 80 percent of the reserve is well-preserved semi-deciduous A...

Image: Paulo B. Chaves | CC BY 2.0