Qualla: Mirador State Park https://qualla.com/mirador-state-park en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/f/mirador-state-park-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Mirador State Park https://qualla.com/mirador-state-park Mirador State Park: Introduction https://qualla.com/mirador-state-park/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Twenty cities in Maranhão drink water that starts its journey here. Among them is São Luís, a UNESCO World Heritage capital of over a million people. Yet for most of the first three decades of its existence, Mirador State Park had no rangers, no management plan, and sometimes no contract between the state and the cooperative supposed to protect it. The park existed on paper. The 437,000 hectares of cerrado and gallery forest on the ground existed as well, but often at the mercy of fires, squatters, and anyone with a chainsaw. The pharmaceutical alkaloid pilocarpine comes from a shrub that grows abundantly here. So do giant armadillos, king vultures, and - somewhere in the gnarled vegetation - the elusive bush dog.

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/f/mirador-state-park-wp/6yzf-mirador-state-park-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Mirador State Park: Where the Rivers Start https://qualla.com/mirador-state-park/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The park is named for its home municipality of Mirador in central Maranhão. It covers the Serra do Itapecuru, which rises to 660 meters between the basins of the Alpercatas and Itapecuru rivers. Those rivers do not appear from nowhere. They begin here, in the springs and seeps of...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/f/mirador-state-park-wp/6yzf-mirador-state-park-where-the-rivers-start.mp3 0:06 2 full Mirador State Park: Pilocarpine, Pequi, and the Slow Trees https://qualla.com/mirador-state-park/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Vegetation here is cerrado, cerradão, and gallery forest - three related plant communities that intergrade across the landscape. A 2013 survey catalogued 140 species from 53 families. The trees run low, gnarled, and thick-barked, adapted to survive fires and long dry seasons. Amo...

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

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/f/mirador-state-park-wp/6yzf-mirador-state-park-pilocarpine-pequi-and-the-slow-trees.mp3 0:06 3 full Mirador State Park: A Park on Paper https://qualla.com/mirador-state-park/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Mirador State Park was created by decree 7.641 on June 4, 1980. The design had a problem from the start: the park was limited to the Mirador municipality alone, so surrounding municipalities had no obligation to preserve the rivers flowing through. Management fell to a department...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/f/mirador-state-park-wp/6yzf-mirador-state-park-a-park-on-paper.mp3 0:06 4 full Mirador State Park: Chainsaws and Deputies https://qualla.com/mirador-state-park/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The structural neglect had consequences. In August 2015, state deputy Rigo Teles spoke in the State Assembly after visiting the park. After the managing cooperative had stopped working, he said, widespread fires had torn through the vegetation and hunters were decimating wildlife...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/f/mirador-state-park-wp/6yzf-mirador-state-park-chainsaws-and-deputies.mp3 0:06 5 full Mirador State Park: The View from 30,000 Feet https://qualla.com/mirador-state-park/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. From a flight deck passing over central Maranhão, Mirador reveals itself as an island of relatively intact cover in a landscape that has been heavily cleared for cattle and agriculture. The Serra do Itapecuru rises as a low plateau, its edges carved by the headwater streams. Gall...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/f/mirador-state-park-wp/6yzf-mirador-state-park-the-view-from-30-000-feet.mp3 0:06 6 full