page_title: Iguaçu National Park
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Iguaçu National Park / History
caption_attribution_description: Português: Esta é a entrada para pedestres e para carros do Parque Nacional do Iguaçu, onde existe uma excelente estrutura de estacionamento e pontos de ônibus.
context_page_description: Iguaçu National Park is a national park in Paraná State, Brazil. It comprises a total area of 185,262.5 hectares and a length of about 420 kilometres, 300 kilometres of which are natural borders by bodies of water and the Argentine and Brazilian sides together comprise around 260,000 hectares. Iguaçu National Park was created by federal decree nr. 1035 of January 10, 1939, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. The park is managed by Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation.
  The park shares with Iguazú National Park in Argentina one of the world's largest waterfalls, extending over some 2,700 metres. It is home to many rare and endangered species of flora and fauna, among them the giant otter and the giant anteater. The clouds of spray produced by the waterfall are conducive to the growth of lush vegetation.
context_section_description: The Iguaçu National Park owes its name to the fact it includes an important area of the Iguazu River (Portuguese: Rio Iguaçu). Approximately 50 square kilometres (19 sq mi) of the length of the river makes up the Iguaçu Falls.
  It is the most important park of the Prata Basin and, since it is a haven to a significant genetic asset of animal and vegetal species, it was the first park in Brazil to receive a Management Plan. As foreseen by Rebouças, the park's basic goal is the preservation of the highly relevant ecologically and scenic natural ecosystems, thus enabling scientific research and the development of environmental education and interpretation activities, recreation in natural surroundings and the ecological tourism.
  The Iguaçu National Park is spectacular as well as pioneering. The first proposal for a Brazilian national park aimed at providing a pristine environment to "future generations", just as "it had been created by God" and endowed with "all possible preservation, from the beautiful to the sublime, from the picturesque to the awesome" and "an unmatched flora" located in the "magnificent Iguaçu waterfalls". These were the words used by André Rebouças, an engineer, in his book "Provinces of Paraná, Railways to Mato Grosso and Bolivia", which started up the campaign aimed at preserving the Iguaçu Falls way back in 1876, when Yellowstone National Park, the first national park on the planet, was four years old.
  On November 17, 1986, during the UNESCO conference held in Paris, the Iguaçu National Park was listed as Natural Heritage of Humanity and is one of the largest forest preservation areas in South America.
caption: Iguaçu National Park Gateway
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