The Sumidouro State Park () is a state park in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The remains of the first human inhabitants of Brazil were found in the park area in the early 19th century, along with bones of now-extinct megafauna. The main attraction is the Gruta da Lapinha, a large limestone cave.
Location
The Sumidouro State Park is in the municipalities of Lagoa Santa (56%) and Pedro Leopoldo (44%) to the north of the metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. It is from Belo Horizonte. The park is in the federal Carste de Lagoa Santa Environmental Protection Area. It has an area of . The unit was named after its lagoon, Sumidouro ("sink"). The lagoon is drained by a network of galleries through which the water penetrates underground into the limestone basin.
History
The Danish naturalist Peter Wilhelm Lund conducted research in the area now covered by the park in the first half of the 19th century. He found remains of Lagoa Santa Man, the first inhabitants of Brazil, along with extinct megafauna. This coexistence of man with extinct species was quoted by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species. The skeleton of "Luzia" found in Lagoa Santa in the 1970s was dated to 11,500 years ago, changing views of when the continent had been occupied. There are traces of stone age people who lived outside the caves in what may be the oldest open-air site of paleoindians.
The Sumidouro State Park was created by state governor Francelino Pereira by decree 20.375 of 3 January 1980. It was originally called the Ecological Park of the Sumidouro Valley (). Little was done to implement the park until 2006, when environmental compensation funding became available from the green line between Belo Horizonte and the Tancredo Neves International Airport in Confins.
In October 2007 it was reported that the Sumidouro State Park was in the final stages of implementation, and since August 2007 had a temporary headquarters at the Casa Fernão Dias. The State Forest Institute (IEF) was to acquire by the end of the year and start construction of a visitor center, house for the manager and administrative structure, and the goal was to complete implementation by the end of 2008. The IEF was also registering owners living in the park and checking their documentation so that compensation for expropriation could be calculated. The consultative council held its first meeting in October 2007 after an inauguration ceremony in the Gruta da Lapinha attended by councilors and representatives of the local community.
Decree 44.935 of 3 November 2008 expanded the area of the park. Law 19.998 of 29 December 2011 defined the boundaries. It is a fully protected conservation unit with the objectives of promoting preservation of the environment and cultural heritage, while supporting research, conservation, environmental education and tourism. A study published in 2013 indicated that the local people were dissatisfied with the way the park was being managed. Residents said they had not been consulted in the park creation process, did not see the need for so many rules, and if they had more information could help maintain the natural heritage while enjoying it as in the past.
Environment
The park is in an area of carbonate rock formations, with springs, sink holes and caves rich in speleothems. The climate is tropical humid, with rainy summers when there are periods of flooding and dry winters. The flora includes species from the cerrado and Atlantic Forest biomes.
Vegetation includes gallery forest, cerrado and rocky meadows. Flora include ipê-amarelo, ipê-roxo, moreira, aroeirinha, jatobá-do-campo, gabiroba, manjoba, mutamba and faveiro. The park is in the transition zone from cerrado to Atlantic Forest, and also has dry forest. Trees with heights of predominate in the cerrado, in the northeast and east regions of the Sumidouro lagoon. These include pequi, pau-terra, cagaita, tingui and sucupira.
Deciduous trees predominate in limestone areas, reaching about in height. These include aroeira, gameleira, angico, cedro, catiguá, embiruçu, paineira and maria-pobre. There are also species typical of the caatinga such as cactos mandacaru and figo-da-barbária, and shrubs such as pimentinha-do-mato. Around the Gruta da Lapinha the predominant trees are semi-deciduous, losing about half their leaves in the dry season, and growing to . These include angico-vermelho, angico-branco, jequitibá-branco and paineira. The original forest has been damaged by man, causing impoverishment of the soil and invasion of cerrado species. The park's management plan includes restoration of some of the areas.