Qualla: Serra Ricardo Franco State Park

Serra Ricardo Franco State Park: Introduction

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geldi Marques, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Jatoba waterfall drops 248 meters off the edge of a sandstone plateau, the longest vertical plunge in the state of Mato Grosso. Below it, seasonal forest stretches toward the Guapore River and the Bolivian border. Above it, the Serra de Ricardo Franco rises like a natural fortress, its flat summit connected to the Serra de Santa Barbara and Serra de Sao Vicente in what geographers call the most prominent relief feature of the Brazilian midwest. This is Serra Ricardo Franco State Park, 158,621 hectares of contested ground where conservation and commerce have been fighting since before the park was even created.

Image: Geldi Marques | CC BY-SA 3.0

Serra Ricardo Franco State Park: A Park Born Into Conflict

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jean Explorador Aventureiro, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the state of Mato Grosso established Serra Ricardo Franco State Park by decree on November 4, 1997, squatters were already living inside its boundaries. The park was designed to protect water resources and preserve samples of the ecosystems spanning the transition from cerra...

Image: Jean Explorador Aventureiro | CC BY-SA 4.0

Serra Ricardo Franco State Park: The Governor and the Soybeans

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elbiogoncalves, CC BY-SA 3.0. In November 2004, the State Environment Foundation presented a proposal to Governor Blairo Maggi, himself one of the world's largest soybean producers, to cut 100,000 hectares from the park. The rationale was straightforward: the government could no longer afford to buy out the l...

Image: Elbiogoncalves | CC BY-SA 3.0

Serra Ricardo Franco State Park: Between Two Worlds

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elbiogoncalves, CC BY-SA 3.0. The park sits in an ecotone, the biological boundary where cerrado grassland gives way to Amazon rainforest, and species from both biomes share the same territory. Giant anteaters, creatures of the open cerrado, live alongside giant otters that hunt in Amazonian waterways. Neotro...

Image: Elbiogoncalves | CC BY-SA 3.0

Serra Ricardo Franco State Park: Gold Miners in the Forest

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elbiogoncalves, CC BY-SA 3.0. Despite its protected status, large sections of Serra Ricardo Franco have been heavily degraded by logging, mining, deforestation, and burning to create cattle pasture. In November 2015, staff from the state environmental agency SEMA and military police entered the park searching...

Image: Elbiogoncalves | CC BY-SA 3.0