Brazil Tours

Rainforest Tours / Brazil – Campos do Jordão State Park (Horto Florestal) is an integral protection conservation unit of the Mata Atlântica Biosphere Reserve in the State of São Paulo. The park is located on the border of the state of Minas Gerais about 190 km northeast of the city of São Paulo and about 12 km east of the village of Campos do Jordão (see map).

Located in the extreme western part of the Serra da Mantiqueira mountain range, the park protects the flora and fauna of the ondulated Plateau of Campos do Jordão, which by epeirogenic tectonic movements during the Cenozoic was uplifted about 2.000 m along the northern border of the Taubaté Basin.

In addition to several springs and tributaries of the Sapucaí Guaçu river which drain into the Paraná Basin, the Horto Florestal of Campos do Jordão mainly protects the last remaining remnants of Araucaria, the characteristic tree of the Mixed Tropical Forest ecosystem which in higer elevations merges into the so-called Campos de Altitude. More than 180 bird species have been registered so far, among others the endangered Vinaceous Amazon (Amazona vinacea).

Of particular geological and ecotouristic interest in the surroundings of the park are the magnificent monadnocks or inselbergs of the Neoproterozoic Baú - complex (Ana Chata, Pedra do Baú and Bauzinho), the Pico do Itapeva Sedimentary Basin on the southern border of the plateau, the adjacent Mananciais de Campos do Jordão State Park and, of cause, the charming village of Campos do Jordão, by many considered as the "Brazilian Switzerland" – Brazil Travel / Ecotourism.

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