Qualla: Serra do Gandarela National Park

Serra do Gandarela National Park: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit josep from BHz, Brasil, CC BY-SA 2.0. More than 60 percent of the drinking water for Belo Horizonte comes from a single river, the Das Velhas, and the Das Velhas gets much of its flow from a single range of hills 40 kilometers away. The hills are iron-bearing, which is the problem. The Quadrilátero Ferrífero - the Iron Quadrangle of Minas Gerais - has been mined for two centuries, and by 2010 the companies that operate there were closing in on the Serra do Gandarela. What was at stake was not just a mountain but the recharge zone of the aquifer that supplies a metropolis of five million people. The federal decree that created Serra do Gandarela National Park on October 13, 2014, was the compromise that emerged from that fight. The compromise is still contested.

Image: josep from BHz, Brasil | CC BY-SA 2.0

Serra do Gandarela National Park: The Water Beneath the Iron

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rcandre, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Serra do Gandarela holds the largest intact remnant of Atlantic Forest left in Minas Gerais. Most of it is in excellent condition, protected until recently by rugged terrain that made logging uneconomical. Springs feeding the Das Velhas, the Piracicaba, and the Doce rivers al...

Image: Rcandre | CC BY-SA 4.0

Serra do Gandarela National Park: The Fight That Almost Lost the Water

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit André Delfino, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2010, at the request of civil society organizations, the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation drafted a proposal for a 38,220-hectare national park. That proposal was never enacted. The mining company Vale had a 4-billion-real iron ore project called Apollo que...

Image: André Delfino | CC BY-SA 4.0

Serra do Gandarela National Park: The Last Atlantic Forest

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit will7, CC BY-SA 3.0. Inside the park boundaries, what survives is a piece of Brazil that once stretched from Rio Grande do Sul to Rio Grande do Norte but has been reduced to about 12 percent of its original extent. The Iron Quadrangle is a transition zone where Atlantic Forest meets Cerrado - the vas...

Image: will7 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Serra do Gandarela National Park: Rock Fields and Rare Flora

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bruno Araújo, CC BY-SA 3.0. The vegetation is more varied than the Atlantic Forest designation suggests. Rock fields - campos rupestres - cover the ridgelines where thin soil lies over iron-rich outcrops. Graminous fields, savannas, and proper forests alternate across the slopes. Several plant species in th...

Image: Bruno Araújo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Serra do Gandarela National Park: The Argument That Continues

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit André Delfino, CC BY-SA 4.0. The national park exists. The water flows. But the compromise that created it did not end the argument, because the Apollo iron ore project remains a permitted activity on lands immediately adjacent to the park's boundaries. Environmental groups continue to push for expanded prot...

Image: André Delfino | CC BY-SA 4.0