Tijuca National Park in the context of "Reforestation"

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⭐ Core Definition: Tijuca National Park

The Tijuca National Park (Portuguese: Parque Nacional da Tijuca) is an urban national park in the mountains of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The park is part of the Atlantic Forest Biosphere Preserve, and is administered by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio).

The area is composed of secondary vegetation, as it is the result of reforestation carried out during the Second Empire, when it became clear that deforestation caused by coffee farms was harming the drinking water supply of the then capital of the Empire. More than 230 species of animals and birds live in the park, including capuchin monkeys, coatis, agoutis, wild dogs, marmosets, hummingbirds and thrushes.

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Tijuca National Park in the context of Christ the Redeemer (statue)

Christ the Redeemer (Portuguese: Cristo Redentor, standard Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈkɾistu ʁedẽˈtoʁ]) is an Art Deco statue of Jesus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, created by French-Polish sculptor Paul Landowski and built by Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with French engineer Albert Caquot. Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida sculpted the face. Constructed between 1922 and 1931, the statue is 30 metres (98 ft) high, excluding its 8-metre (26 ft) pedestal. The arms stretch 28 metres (92 ft) wide. It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone. Christ the Redeemer differs considerably from its original design, as the initial plan was a large Christ with a globe in one hand and a cross in the other. Although the project organizers originally accepted the design, it later changed to the statue of today, with the arms spread out wide.

The statue weighs 635 metric tons (625 long, 700 short tons), and is located at the peak of the 700-metre (2,300 ft) Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca National Park overlooking the city of Rio de Janeiro. This statue is the largest Art Deco–style sculpture in the world. A symbol of Christianity around the world, the statue has also become a cultural icon of both Rio de Janeiro and Brazil and was voted one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.

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Tijuca National Park in the context of Pedra da Gávea

Pedra da Gávea is a monolithic mountain in Tijuca Forest, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Composed of granite and gneiss, its elevation is 844 metres (2,769 ft), making it one of the highest mountains in the world that ends directly in the ocean. Trails on the mountain were opened up by the local farming population in the early 19th century; today, the site is under the administration of the Tijuca National Park.

The mountain's name translates as Rock of the Topsail, and was given to it during the expedition of Captain Gaspar de Lemos, begun in 1501, and in which the Rio de Janeiro bay (today Guanabara Bay, but after which the city was named) also received its name. The mountain, one of the first in Brazil to be named in Portuguese, was named by the expedition's sailors, who compared its silhouette to that of the shape of a topsail of a carrack upon sighting it on January 1, 1502. That name in turn came to be given to the Gávea area of the city of Rio de Janeiro.

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