Qualla: Mapinguari National Park

Mapinguari National Park: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Somewhere in the folklore of western Amazonia lurks the Mapinguari -- a giant, foul-smelling, one-eyed creature that some cryptozoologists believe may be a folk memory of the giant ground sloth. Whether or not the beast exists, the national park that bears its name protects something equally improbable: vast islands of open savanna locked inside the Amazon rainforest, a landscape that looks more like central Africa than equatorial Brazil. Spanning 1.77 million hectares across the states of Rondonia and Amazonas, Mapinguari National Park sits in the interfluvial zone between two of the Amazon's mightiest tributaries, the Madeira and the Purus, and shelters species found nowhere else on Earth.

Read more: Mapinguari National Park on Qualla

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

Mapinguari National Park: Savanna in the Sea of Green

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Renato Gaiga, CC BY-SA 3.0. From the air, the Amazon rainforest appears as an unbroken carpet of green stretching to every horizon. But within Mapinguari's boundaries, that carpet tears open to reveal something unexpected -- broad expanses of grassland and low shrub, pockets of savanna that scientists call ...

Read more: Mapinguari National Park on Qualla

Image: Renato Gaiga | CC BY-SA 3.0

Mapinguari National Park: Where New Species Still Emerge

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Renato Gaiga, CC BY-SA 3.0. In a world where biodiversity discoveries increasingly come from laboratory genetics rather than field observation, Mapinguari keeps delivering surprises the old-fashioned way. The Campina jay, Cyanocorax hafferi, was identified in the transitional habitat between the park's rain...

Read more: Mapinguari National Park on Qualla

Image: Renato Gaiga | CC BY-SA 3.0

Mapinguari National Park: A Park Carved by Politics

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Renato Gaiga, CC BY-SA 3.0. Mapinguari National Park was created by presidential decree on June 5, 2008, initially covering 1,572,422 hectares. The stated purpose was to preserve ecosystems of great ecological relevance and scenic beauty, particularly the savanna enclaves unique to this interfluvial region....

Read more: Mapinguari National Park on Qualla

Image: Renato Gaiga | CC BY-SA 3.0

Mapinguari National Park: Conservation Under Pressure

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RodrigoErse, CC BY-SA 4.0. Mapinguari does not exist in isolation. It is one node in a constellation of protected areas stretching across the BR-319 corridor, the controversial highway that links Manaus to Porto Velho. In 2012, federal authorities issued an ordinance requiring coordinated management plans ...

Read more: Mapinguari National Park on Qualla

Image: RodrigoErse | CC BY-SA 4.0