Grande Sertão Veredas

Grande Sertão Veredas National Park protects 231,000 hectares of distinctive cerrado (savanna) ecosystems in northwestern Minas Gerais and southwestern Bahia states of Brazil. The park takes its name from João Guimarães Rosa's acclaimed novel "Grande Sertão: Veredas," which immortalized these landscapes in Brazilian literature. The park encompasses vast stretches of cerrado vegetation punctuated by "veredas"—ribbon-like gallery forests growing along seasonal watercourses, dominated by buriti palms creating distinctive linear oases across the otherwise open savanna. These palm groves provide critical water sources and habitat during the long dry season. The park protects headwaters of several river systems and supports exceptional biodiversity adapted to the cerrado's seasonal extremes. Wildlife includes giant anteaters, maned wolves, giant armadillos, pampas deer, and numerous endemic bird species. The landscapes inspired Rosa's literary masterpiece, and the park preserves both ecological and cultural heritage. Established in 1989, Grande Sertão Veredas remains relatively remote and little-visited, protecting some of Brazil's most pristine cerrado ecosystems in a biome that has suffered extensive conversion to agriculture elsewhere.