Restinga de Jurubatiba

Restinga de Jurubatiba National Park was created in 1998 in the north of the state of Rio de Janeiro, across the municipalities of Macaé, Carapebus and Quissamã, and was the first Brazilian national park intended to protect the restinga ecosystem exclusively.

Restinga is the vegetation that colonises the sand bars of marine origin formed parallel to the coast. It is an environment of extreme conditions — sandy soil with hardly any nutrients, salinity, intense sunlight, constant wind and poor water retention — in which the plants develop very marked adaptations. Despite that harshness, the restinga shows a notable diversity of physiognomies, from the creeping vegetation nearest the shore to the restinga woodland on the inner bars, by way of scrub of cacti and bromeliads.

Behind the sand bars runs a system of coastal lagoons of brackish or fresh water, among them Cabiúnas, Comprida and Carapebus, which are the park's biological heart and support waterbirds, fish and an invertebrate community of their own. This stretch of coast is under intense pressure from tourist development, sand extraction and, above all, from the activity of the oil industry of the Campos basin, whose operational centre is neighbouring Macaé, which makes the park a protected island in a heavily transformed setting.