Brazil Tours

Ecotravel & Tours / Brazil - The Serra do Mar State Park is an integral protection conservation unit of the São Paulo City Green Belt and Mata Atlântica Biosphere Reserve in the State of São Paulo. Due to its enormous extension, it is divided into 8 administrative sections (Caraguatatuba, Cunha, Curucutu, Pedro de Toledo, Picinguaba, Itutinga - Pilões, São Sebastião and Santa Virgínia).

In its function as an ecolocical corridor, the largest park of the Atlantic Rainforest connects the protected areas in the south of Rio de Janeiro State with the ones in the Ribeira Valley and in the state of Paraná (see map).

The Serra do Mar State Park insures the genetic flux and the preservation of large animals, such as puma and jaguar, which need spacious territories for their survival. It protects important ecosystems such as dense submontane, montane and high montane tropical rainforest on the magnificent Serra do Mar escarpments and pioneer formations like mangrove, restinga and caixetais, in the coastal lowlands.

Prior to colonial and pre-colonial Brazil, many indigenous trails crossed the Serra do Mar (see Cubatão / Tupiniquins - Trail), being used by the Tupiniquim and Tamoio Indians in order to reach the Piratininga - Highland (see also: foundation of São Paulo). Nowadays, most of these trails are abandoned and only sporadically used by local communities and some ecotourists.

The Serra do Mar State Park is still home to some indigenous Guarani tribes (for example Aldeia Indígena de Boa Vista do Sertão do Prumirim, Ribeirão Silveira, Rio Branco, do Bananal and do Aguapeú) such as some caiçara populations in the municiples of Cananéia, Iguape and Peruíbe such as the northern coast.

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