Emas National Park protects one of the largest remaining areas of Cerrado savanna in southwestern Goiás, near the border with Mato Grosso do Sul. The landscape is more varied than the word “savanna” suggests: the federal conservation agency ICMBio describes open grasslands, scrubby fields, palm-lined wetlands known as veredas and gallery forests along streams. Chapadões and broad horizons give the park its open character, while rivers and wooded corridors create different habitats across the protected area.
The park was created in 1961 and today covers about 132,788 hectares according to ICMBio’s unit profile. It extends across parts of Mineiros and Chapadão do Céu in Goiás and Costa Rica in Mato Grosso do Sul. UNESCO inscribed Emas in 2001 as part of the Cerrado Protected Areas, together with Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park. The designation recognizes a protected sample of a major tropical savanna biome, whose plant and animal communities are distinct from those of the Amazon rainforest or the Pantanal.