Qualla: Serra Nova State Park

Serra Nova State Park: Introduction

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Euge.nunes, CC BY-SA 4.0. Rain that falls on the west side of a ridge inside Serra Nova State Park eventually reaches the Atlantic via the São Francisco. Rain that falls on the east side reaches the Atlantic via the Jequitinhonha. The divide between Brazil's two great northeastern river basins runs right through these mountains, which is part of why researchers pushed so hard, starting in the 1990s, to get them protected. Serra Nova was created by decree in October 2003 and expanded over the next decade to cover almost 50,000 hectares of the Serra Geral and Espinhaço ranges - rocky, rugged country at 28°C annual average, where rupestrian fields meet cerrado meet dry forest, and where researchers keep finding amphibians that are probably new to science.

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Image: Euge.nunes | CC BY-SA 4.0

Serra Nova State Park: A Landscape of Water

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniela Caroline Silva, CC BY-SA 4.0. The park covers five municipalities in northern Minas Gerais: Rio Pardo de Minas, Porteirinha, Mato Verde, Riacho dos Machados, and Serranópolis de Minas. Belo Horizonte is 640 kilometers to the south. Inside the park boundary, several rivers rise: the São Gonçalo, the Ventania, ...

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Image: Daniela Caroline Silva | CC BY-SA 4.0

Serra Nova State Park: Rupestrian Fields

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HearthBreacker, CC BY-SA 3.0. The dominant vegetation is campos rupestres - rupestrian fields - a category that sounds generic but in the Espinhaço means something very specific. Rocky, open meadows grow on quartzite outcrops at altitudes between 900 and 2,000 meters, baked by equatorial sun and swept by wind...

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Image: HearthBreacker | CC BY-SA 3.0

Serra Nova State Park: What Lives Here

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HearthBreacker, CC BY-SA 3.0. The fauna list reads like a who's-who of Brazilian dry country. Cougars. Maned wolves, the lanky orange canid that is more stilts than wolf. Crab-eating foxes. Tufted capuchins moving through the gallery forests along the streams. Southern tamanduas, the climbing anteater. Helmet...

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Image: HearthBreacker | CC BY-SA 3.0