Bertioga: Urban forest has an accessible and inclusive trail – 05/27/2023 – Tourism

One of the tactile models available on the existing trail inside the Sesc Bertioga Natural Reserve, 116 km from São Paulo, shows three visitors attentively observing a giant tree. One of them is in a wheelchair amidst the rich vegetation of the place.

The scene is not fiction. The structure for visiting the reserve on the coast of São Paulo was planned with resources to assist people with disabilities, which includes a lowered guide, tactile flooring, photos of fauna and flora in high relief, signs with information in Braille, videos with translation in Libras, adapted bathrooms, buoying guide, as well as sculptures and tactile models.

Officially opened in December 2021, the so-called trail of feeling runs through part of the 50 hectares of restinga forest located within the urban area of ​​Bertioga, the municipality that hosts a disputed Sesc vacation center.

The green area has been part of Sesc Bertioga since 1949, but the process to transform it into a RPPN (Private Natural Heritage Reserve) with the Forestry Foundation, an agency linked to the State Secretariat for the Environment, began in 2012.

A management plan developed with the participation of the local population details the management of the reserve and shows what is there: plants, animals, geology. There are more than 600 species of insects, amphibians, mammals and plants.

The document also establishes the activities that can be developed, the organization of visits, tourism and recreation actions.

Visits to the nature reserve are part of the tourist attractions available to Sesc Bertioga visitors, but they also attract city residents and tourists staying in other hotels or inns.

Access is free and the tour can be done from Tuesday to Sunday, from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm.

“Our concern is to be more and more integrated into the community”, says Marcos Laurenti, manager of Sesc Bertioga. According to him, there is a concern not to turn the reserve into an “island” isolated from the population.

Yoga classes and visits by children accompanied by teachers and instructors are some of the activities carried out in the urban forest.

For children, one of the attractions is the play garden, an area with rustic structures where they can explore contact with nature and forget about the digital world for a few moments.

Suspended by means of a deck, the Sentir trail is 960 meters long and can be walked with the mediation of environmental education agents or independently.

As part of the approximation of the population, the name was chosen in a public vote, on Sesc’s social networks.

In addition, there is also a trail on the forest floor, 300 meters long and light in intensity.

Sesc has plans to expand the possibilities of visiting the forest, through the construction of a walkway that will cross the Anchieta highway, next to the nature reserve.

ATLANTIC FOREST AND HISTORY

The state of São Paulo currently has only 17% of its native vegetation. Of this total, 77% are in private protected areas such as the Sesc.

Bertioga, a municipality located in the metropolitan region of Baixada Santista, has the highest percentage of Atlantic forest in the state. Ninety percent of the municipality’s territory is occupied by this biome. The restinga forest is a coastal ecosystem, associated with the Atlantic forest.

Still little explored, the environmental wealth and historic buildings are increasingly attracting the interest of tourists who want to go beyond the comfort offered by the structure of the city’s high-end condominiums.

The municipality has, for example, traces of prehistoric occupation and assets listed by Condephaat (Council for the Defense of Historical, Archaeological, Artistic and Tourist Heritage), such as Fort São João, built in stone and oyster lime mortar in the 17th century. 16.

The tourist occupation of Bertioga began in the 1940s with the first subdivisions and the Sesc summer camp. At that time, tourists arrived in Santos by train and then used ferries to go to the municipality.

The construction of highways, starting in the 1970s, took tourism to the beaches of the north coast and intensified the construction of luxury developments such as the Riviera de São Lourenço, an allotment with 11,000 housing units, shopping malls, restaurants, schools and medical clinics. .

HOW TO GET

The Sesc Bertioga Nature Reserve is located at Avenida Francisco Soto Barreiro Filho, 1117 (former Avenida do Canal), in Bertioga. Visits can be made from Tuesday to Sunday, from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm and are free. Children up to 12 years old must be accompanied.

The journalist traveled at the invitation of Sesc SP