Vegetable planting workshop

In the vegetable workshop, the importance of planting seeds and seedlings in pots or flower beds is discussed. During the workshop, tips are given on: land preparation, irrigation, fertilization, and routine care. Aiming at well-being and healthy eating.

Visits to the industrial port complex

After exploring the Botanical Park, guests are able to visit Vale’s operational area. During the visit there are presentations on the following topics: Vale’s history in Brazil and around the world, day-to-day life at Vale, and Our Business. The stops on the trip include: the rotary car dumper, stockyard, and Ponta da Madeira terminal.

The Trail of the Senses

The Botanical Park’s sensory trail is an attraction adapted for guests with limited mobility or visual impairments. Visitors will encounter five stations along the trail that allow them to explore their senses, as well as a lake in which fish can be found.

Knowledge railcar

This trip takes visitors along in an old-fashioned passenger railway car, which has been renovated and modified to create a space for knowledge and fun. Here you can find a memory game along the wall with images of local fauna, books and paintings for children, samples of crafts created in workshops held in the Botanical Park, and exhibits with photos of the activities that are held at the park each day.

Meliponary

The Meliponary is a space for visits and environmental education where it is possible to learn about the life and behaviour of stingless bees, also known as meliponines.

Here you can find a total of 26 beehive boxes with gigantic bee population that can include as many as 5 thousand bees per box. In our meliponary, we work with two stingless bee species: the Tiúba (melipona fasciculada) and the “small bee” (plebeia minima).

Orchid Garden

Opened in 2011, the São Luis Orchid Garden is the first garden of its kind opened to the public in the city. The garden is home to collections of orchids that are native to the different biomes of Brazil and includes around 30 different species.

Seedlings nursery

This is the location in which seedlings destined to be used by Vale in the production of native arboreal and shrub species found in Brazilian forests are grown. The nursery is focused on forest recovery and provides communities with free genetic material. The nursery has a production capacity of 50,000 seedlings per year. There are currently 40,000 seedlings produced in the nursery each year.

Herbarium

São Luis Botanical Park’s Herbarium has 3 different types of botanical collections: exsiccates, a carpotec, and a sementeca (seed library), with specimens found in the Amazon Cerrado and the caatinga (arid regions of Northeastern Brazil).

Rooms, auditorium and amphitheater

The park has three classrooms with a capacity of 50 people each and an auditorium for 200 people. In these spaces, events such as lectures, courses and seminars are held for external audiences or internally by Vale employees and contractors. The park also has an amphitheater, an open-air space for cultural, theatrical and music presentations, with a capacity for 350 people.

Vale Space

In this environment, there is a permanent exhibition with information about Vale's operations in Maranhão, Brazil and around the world, with an emphasis on the production process from the mine, in Pará, to shipment at the Port, in São Luis.

Crafts and Environmental Education Workshop

Space reserved for recreational activities, with ecological games, art workshops and sustainable workshops, such as: bags an rugs made with cloth flaps, pet keychain, bags made with milk cartons, recycled paper picture frames, wrapper head with popsicle stick etc.

Health trail

Trilha da Saúde is a walking program guided by physical education professionals, offered free of charge to 400 residents of the Itaqui-Bacanga region. Activities such as gym classes, dance, lectures on health and exercise practices are held in the morning and afternoon, from Tuesday to Friday, in the Botanical Park. The program's objective is to contribute to the quality and life of residents of the Itaqui-Bacanga region, in addition to bringing these people closer to the company's initiatives.

Events

Various events and actions are carried out throughout the year, based on the Park's operating pillars – culture, education and health – offered to audiences of all ages. Main events: Environment Week, Picnic in the Park, Health Park, Saturday at leisure, Reading Week, Biodiversity Day, Innovation Fair, Water Day, Annual Tree Festival, Children's Week, Exhibitions, Courses, Workshops, Seminars, Sustainable Art Week, Christmas Party, among others.

Eco library

Space with children's books, games, educational videos & various educational toys, serving as a toy library.

Cactus

The cactus brings together species of cactus and succulents that can be found in the region and in Brazil. Despite being small, it has a wide variety of species, available for visitation. The Park team works on the maintenance, production, conservation and enrichment of the collection.