The Serra do Rola-Moça State Park is located in the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte (MRBH), extending through the municipalities of Belo Horizonte, Brumadinho, Nova Lima, and Ibirité. With an area of 4,000 hectares, the park was created in 1994. The Park plays a major role in protecting the headwaters of streams that supply MRBH. The Park shelters unique landscapes of laterite remnants, known locally as “canga”, allowing recreation for local communities. Its vegetation includes rupestrian fields, savannas and forests typical of the Atlantic Forest biome. Its emblematic species is the canela-de-ema, a shrub abundant in the region whose roots are used for medicinal purposes by traditional populations.
