Qualla: Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station

Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ismael Carlos Oliveira de Paula, CC BY-SA 4.0. The local people call it capim-dourado - golden grass - and they believe it needs to burn. For generations, families across this stretch of the cerrado have set fire to the grasslands every dry season, partly to clear pasture for cattle, partly because they are convinced Syngonanthus nitens grows best in ash. The science disagrees. But in a region where the population is among the poorest in Brazil and where the sale of handicrafts woven from those golden stems can mean the difference between subsistence and hunger, belief has weight that a scientific paper cannot match. This is the Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station, and the fires are its greatest threat.

Image: Ismael Carlos Oliveira de Paula | CC BY-SA 4.0

Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station: A Reserve the Size of a Small Country

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Queucer, CC BY-SA 4.0. At 707,078 hectares, the ecological station is one of the largest strict nature reserves in Brazil. It stretches across the state line between Bahia and Tocantins, covering part of the Formosa do Rio Preto municipality in Bahia and the Almas, Mateiros, Ponte Alta do Tocantins, an...

Image: Queucer | CC BY-SA 4.0

Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station: The Cerrado's Dry Pulse

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lucio Cardoso, CC BY-SA 4.0. This is savanna, not rainforest. Vegetation is 81% grassland, 17% scattered woodland, and just 1% forest. From May through September, rain hardly falls at all. Temperatures swing wildly between night and day, sometimes reaching 47 degrees Celsius when the afternoon sun pours down...

Image: Lucio Cardoso | CC BY-SA 4.0

Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station: A Menagerie of the Unusual

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lucio Cardoso, CC BY-SA 4.0. The animal life is extraordinary, and much of it endemic. The maned wolf prowls the open country on absurdly long legs, looking like a fox on stilts. The hoary fox hunts insects in the same thickets. Giant anteaters, tapirs, jaguars, capybaras, anacondas, and rattlesnakes share t...

Image: Lucio Cardoso | CC BY-SA 4.0

Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station: Fire, Soy, and the Future

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bittencourt90, CC BY-SA 4.0. The threats are stacking up. Natural lightning fires once burned small patches at the start of summer, before rain put them out. The human fires come later in the dry season, when the grass is bone-dry and the wind is constant - so they last longer and spread farther. They happen...

Image: Bittencourt90 | CC BY-SA 4.0