Monsanto Forest Park is a protected forest in Lisbon, Portugal, the largest green patch in the city, with almost 1000 ha (10 km2). It offers a well diversified tree-covered area to the Portuguese capital.
A large number of species were introduced in Serra de Monsanto (Monsanto Hills) during the reforesting period. Due to climate and geological characteristics, they created a very interesting ecosystems in the urban patch of Lisbon (and surrounding municipalities). The Ecological Park of Lisbon, located at Monsanto Forest Park, is a meeting point for a new contact with the environment, right in the heart of the Portuguese capital. Its main purpose is to make visitors aware of the many variables of the environment, for instance, geology, climate, flora, and fauna.
The Ecological Park, residing inside the Forest Park, has a perimeter of four kilometres, and a total area of fifty hectares, of which sixteen is fenced and thirty four is non-fenced. It spreads over Serra de Monsanto, from Alto da Serafina to the Woods of S. Domingos de Benfica, passes the farm of Marquis de Fronteira and the Lead Shooting Club of Portugal. The Ecological Park runs an Interpretation Centre, with an auditorium, a space for permanent and occasional exhibitions, and a Centre of Multimedia Resources. Quercus, the largest Portuguese non-profit national environment organization for the conservation of the natural environment, is based in Monsanto Park.
Famous quotes containing the words forest and/or park:
“The forest of Compiegne. Look at it. Like a kind grandmother dozing in her rocking chair. Old trees practicing curtsies in the wind because they still think Louis XIV is king.”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“Borrow a child and get on welfare.
Borrow a child and stay in the house all day with the child,
or go to the public park with the child, and take the child
to the welfare office and cry and say your man left you and
be humble and wear your dress and your smile, and don’t talk
back ...”
—Susan Griffin (b. 1943)