Ruschi’s museum: from a smallholding in Santa Teresa to the National Atlantic Forest Institute
In 1939 a young naturalist traded orchids for a piece of forest. From it came a museum, a biological station and a federal reserve; the museum became the National Atlantic Forest Institute. This story follows that path through the institute’s own papers, looks at the four places from space from 1985 to 2025, and measures what GBIF holds for each: how much, of what, and how good.
Loading the numbers…
—of history, from 1949 to today measured
—GBIF records in the four places measured
—GBIF records within 100 m of the museum measured
—of the Augusto Ruschi Reserve under forest in 2025 measured
measured by satellite, by a GBIF count or by the geometry itself; historical facts come from the cited papers.
estimated a reading that depends on a choice (a radius, a window).
missing a part that did not respond this time.
1
A highland in Espírito Santo
Santa Teresa lies in the Central Highlands of Espírito Santo, a region set by state law 9,768/2011 with four other municipalities: Itaguaçu, Itarana, Santa Leopoldina and Santa Maria de Jetibá. It covers about 317 thousand hectares of steep land, 584 m high on average and up to 1,419 m, settled by Italian and Pomeranian immigrants. The region holds one of the largest numbers of biodiversity records in the Atlantic Forest, much of it because a biology museum has worked there since 1949.
2
A boy who collected
Augusto Ruschi (1915–1986) collected plants and animals from boyhood. Mostly drawn to orchids and bromeliads, he kept a living collection on slatted racks at the Anitta smallholding in the centre of Santa Teresa, which would become the Museu de Biologia Professor Mello Leitão. He took degrees in agronomy (1940) and law (1950), and joined the Museu Nacional in Rio as a volunteer botany assistant in 1939.
3
Orchids traded for forest
In December 1939 the director of the Museu Nacional, Heloísa Alberto Torres, wrote that she had just bought from Ruschi, for fifteen contos de réis, a collection of 426 orchid species from Santa Teresa. The young man, who "lives in fear that these forests will be felled", offered the money to the Friends of the Museu Nacional to buy "the best forest in the municipality" and set up a biological station there. That was the start of today's Santa Lúcia Biological Station.
4
The first deed
The purchase was not simple: in January 1941 the sellers deeded the land to Ruschi, bound to donate it to the Friends of the Museu Nacional. It was 129 hectares of "forests and rock". Until 1960 the station would grow by donation and purchase; the papers mix up the Museu Nacional and its friends' society as owners, a confusion that came back in the 1970s.
5
The Prof. Mello Leitão Biology Museum
In 1949 Ruschi founded a private natural-history museum in Santa Teresa and named it after his mentor and friend Cândido Firmino de Mello Leitão, a Museu Nacional zoologist known for his work on spiders and scorpions. It was Espírito Santo's first biological research institute. The herbarium Ruschi had begun in 1940, and his other collections, became the museum's.
6
A governor more generous than asked
In 1952, warned that neighbours were surveying forest next to the station, Ruschi turned to governor Jones dos Santos Neves, and the Museu Nacional asked for about 80 hectares of adjoining "virgin land". The governor gave twice that: 1,560,000 m², or 156 hectares; the university accepted on 28 July 1953. The deed, though, was never collected from the registry, and the file was lost as directors changed.
7
A herbarium on the low ground
In 1954 the Dr. Graciano dos Santos Neves Forest Botany Pavilion opened on the lowest part of the museum grounds, by the wall on Rua José Ruschi. It also took specimens from the state agriculture department, for which Ruschi surveyed the state's forested land. By 1959 the herbarium held about 3,000 sheets, exchanged with institutions in Brazil and abroad.
8
Three owners, one station
With money given in part by the journalist and businessman Assis Chateaubriand, owner of the Diários Associados, Ruschi bought in June 1960 another 28 hectares from a farmer and 25 from his brother Alexandre, and named the whole the Santa Lúcia Biological Station. With the 129 hectares of 1941 and the 156 of 1953 it came to about 338 hectares, with three different owners: the friends' society, the Museu Nacional and Ruschi's museum.
9
Well beyond Santa Teresa
The museum was decisive in creating or consolidating Espírito Santo's first protected areas: the Itaúnas river reserve (now Itaúnas State Park), Córrego do Veado (now a Biological Reserve), Nova Lombardia, renamed the Augusto Ruschi Biological Reserve, and the Comboios Biological Reserve, created by state decree 1,376 of 22 June 1953 at Ruschi's suggestion. At Comboios, the invasions he denounced in the 1970s set him against the state government.
10
Palm hearts, surveyors and a caravan
In 1972 a palm-heart firm, Planitec, asked the state for 100 hectares in Santa Lúcia, inside the area Ruschi claimed; the state surveyor was a relative of its partners. In 1975 a government agronomist found trees numbered with copper tags and advised keeping the forest, "because the Timbuí river rises there", but as state land. In 1977 Ruschi turned the surveyors away, won a court injunction over 279 hectares and took the fight to the newspapers: an Ecological Caravan handed the governor about 5,000 signatures on 2 October. On 21 October the state granted the Museu Nacional possession of the area "ad eternum", for teaching, research and preservation, while keeping the title.
11
Forty years of herbarium under water
In 1979, after 45 days of rain, the Timbuí river flooded Santa Teresa "so that you could row a boat down every street". The botany pavilion, on the low ground, went under, and Ruschi lost more than 20,000 catalogued sheets, many of them type material. Only the duplicates on loan to other herbaria survived.
12
Nova Lombardia, then Augusto Ruschi
The Nova Lombardia reserve, north of town, became a federal biological reserve; the national protected-area register lists it as created in 1982, with 3,540 hectares, and today it bears the museum founder's name. It is where Brazil's highest diversity of vascular epiphytes was recorded, 356 species, mostly orchids and bromeliads.
13
From private to public
In 1983 the museum was taken into the Fundação Nacional Pró-Memória, under the Ministry of Culture. With researchers and field staff hired, the herbarium was rebuilt from the forest of the state's central region. Ruschi died in 1986. In 1998, at 5,000 specimens, the herbarium joined Index Herbariorum as MBML.
14
The herbarium moves uphill
In December 2000 the Timbuí rose about 3.6 m and flooded the low buildings on the grounds again, up to 2 m deep. The herbarium held 16,848 specimens and 80% were damaged. After every sheet was dried and remounted, the collection moved to the highest part of the grounds, Augusto Ruschi's house, where it still is.
15
The museum becomes a national institute
Law 12,954 of 5 February 2014 turned the Museu de Biologia Prof. Mello Leitão into the National Atlantic Forest Institute (INMA), under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, with its scientific collections. The institute shares the running of Santa Lúcia with the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Museu Nacional's friends' society. In October 2021 the herbarium held 55,048 records of 6,606 plant species, 1,231 of them nomenclatural types, and documented 352 threatened species.
16
443 tree species in one hectare
At Santa Lúcia, a 1997 study counted 443 tree species in a single hectare of forest, between 600 and 900 m up. The herbarium holds 2,197 species collected in Santa Teresa's protected areas: Santa Lúcia, the São Lourenço Municipal Park and the Augusto Ruschi Reserve. Santa Teresa is the region's most studied municipality; more than half the work is on fauna, mostly insects, amphibians and mammals.
17
Four places, two scales
From here on the story reads, by satellite and through GBIF, the four places the institute looks after: the museum grounds in the town centre; the Ecoparque, now part of the institute; the Santa Lúcia Station; and the Augusto Ruschi Reserve.
18
Before and after
Drag the bar: on the left, Landsat 5 around 1986; on the right, Sentinel-2 in 2025.
19
2008, the Forest Code date
Drag the bar: on the left, 2008, the Forest Code reference year; on the right, Sentinel-2 in 2025.
20
The land, 1985 to 2025
MapBiomas Collection 11: on the map, 1985 and 2025 under the bar; on the chart, every year.
21
The forest that came back
On the map, the decade each pixel of today's secondary vegetation started to grow; on the chart, primary, secondary and human use each year.
22
What GBIF holds here
Through Naturametrics' GBIF tool: records and species in discs of 0.1 to 5 km around the point.
23
The records on the map
Each point is a GBIF coordinate, coloured by kingdom and sized by its number of records.
24
Thousands of records on a single point
Each circle is one exact coordinate holding many records, sized by the count.
25
Before and after
Drag the bar: on the left, Landsat 5 around 1986; on the right, Sentinel-2 in 2025.
26
2008, the Forest Code date
Drag the bar: on the left, 2008, the Forest Code reference year; on the right, Sentinel-2 in 2025.
27
The land, 1985 to 2025
MapBiomas Collection 11: on the map, 1985 and 2025 under the bar; on the chart, every year.
28
The forest that came back
On the map, the decade each pixel of today's secondary vegetation started to grow; on the chart, primary, secondary and human use each year.
29
What GBIF holds here
Through Naturametrics' GBIF tool: records and species in discs of 0.1 to 5 km around the point.
30
The records on the map
Each point is a GBIF coordinate, coloured by kingdom and sized by its number of records.
31
Before and after
Drag the bar: on the left, Landsat 5 around 1986; on the right, Sentinel-2 in 2025.
32
2008, the Forest Code date
Drag the bar: on the left, 2008, the Forest Code reference year; on the right, Sentinel-2 in 2025.
33
The land, 1985 to 2025
MapBiomas Collection 11: on the map, 1985 and 2025 under the bar; on the chart, every year.
34
The forest that came back
On the map, the decade each pixel of today's secondary vegetation started to grow; on the chart, primary, secondary and human use each year.
35
Clearing and regrowth, year by year
MapBiomas yearly events: clearing of primary and of secondary vegetation, and regrowth.
36
Fire
Area burned each year, MapBiomas Fire.
37
What GBIF holds here
Through Naturametrics' GBIF tool: records and species in discs of 0.1 to 5 km around the point.
38
The records on the map
Each point is a GBIF coordinate, coloured by kingdom and sized by its number of records.
39
When things were recorded
Records per year of collection or observation, inside the area.
40
Before and after
Drag the bar: on the left, Landsat 5 around 1986; on the right, Sentinel-2 in 2025.
41
2008, the Forest Code date
Drag the bar: on the left, 2008, the Forest Code reference year; on the right, Sentinel-2 in 2025.
42
The land, 1985 to 2025
MapBiomas Collection 11: on the map, 1985 and 2025 under the bar; on the chart, every year.
43
The forest that came back
On the map, the decade each pixel of today's secondary vegetation started to grow; on the chart, primary, secondary and human use each year.
44
Clearing and regrowth, year by year
MapBiomas yearly events: clearing of primary and of secondary vegetation, and regrowth.
45
Fire
Area burned each year, MapBiomas Fire.
46
What GBIF holds here
Through Naturametrics' GBIF tool: records and species in discs of 0.1 to 5 km around the point.
47
The records on the map
Each point is a GBIF coordinate, coloured by kingdom and sized by its number of records.
48
When things were recorded
Records per year of collection or observation, inside the area.
49
Where the records are
GBIF records per 0.01° cell (≈1 km), from Santa Teresa to the reserve.
50
Who publishes
The institutions that published each place's records.
51
Specimen or sighting
The basis of each record: collection specimen, human observation, machine.
52
How precise the point is
How many records state the uncertainty of their own coordinate.
53
Identified to species
How much of each place was identified to species.
54
GBIF's own flags
The flags GBIF attaches to records when it processes them.
55
Decades of records
Records per decade, in each place.
56
Birds, plants, insects
The classes with most records in each place.
57
Records of threatened species
Records by IUCN Red List category.
58
What only one place has
Species recorded in only one of the four places, and in all four.
59
Side by side
Land and records of the four places in one table.
60
The whole highland
The decade each patch of today's secondary vegetation began, across the region of the four places.
61
Where each number came from
This page's data and sources.
umaterra.com.br · Mello Leitão · INMA
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What this story does not say
The discs are not boundaries. The museum, the Ecoparque and Santa Lúcia are read in fixed-area discs around a point; the numbers change with another outline.
GBIF is not the institute's collection. Many herbarium and zoological specimens are not in GBIF, or carry the town's coordinate; what the page measures is what is published.
The history comes from the cited papers. The historical facts are from the papers of the Boletim do Museu de Biologia Prof. Mello Leitão cited in the notes; the page adds none.
Written with Claude Opus 5.5, by Anthropic, from the cited papers and the numbers Yvynation, Naturametrics and Earth Engine computed: no fact or number comes from the model. Versão em português.
Notes and references
Biondo, L. M., Saiter, F. Z., & Vasconcelos, S. S. (2024). The Central Highlands of Espírito Santo: geography and landscape change in a biodiversity hotspot (in Portuguese). Boletim do Museu de Biologia Prof. Mello Leitão (Série INMA), 1. doi:10.70525/2024.2
Gonçalves, A. S., & Fernandez, F. S. (2024). Land-use conflict and nature protection in Espírito Santo: the case of the Santa Lúcia Biological Station (in Portuguese). Boletim do Museu de Biologia Prof. Mello Leitão (Série INMA), 1. doi:10.70525/2024.3
Tuler, A. C., Couto, D. R., Ramos, E., Zorzanelli, J. P. F., Freitas, J., Ribeiro, R. S., Fernandes, H. Q. B., & Coelho-Ferreira, M. R. (2024). The MBML Herbarium: past, present and future (in Portuguese). Boletim do Museu de Biologia Prof. Mello Leitão (Série INMA), 1. doi:10.70525/2024.10 The 443-tree-species study is Thomaz & Monteiro (1997) and the 356-epiphyte one Marcusso et al. (2022), both cited there.
Freitas, J. L., Rivero, A. C., & Silva, F. M. (2024). Scientific production on the biodiversity of the Central Highlands of Espírito Santo (in Portuguese). Boletim do Museu de Biologia Prof. Mello Leitão (Série INMA), 1. mbml.sisdoc.com.br
Santos, C. V., Ramos, E., Zorzanelli, J. P. F., & Coelho-Ferreira, M. R. (2024). Traditional, established and potential uses of Atlantic Forest plants from Santa Teresa, Espírito Santo (in Portuguese). Boletim do Museu de Biologia Prof. Mello Leitão (Série INMA), 1. mbml.sisdoc.com.br
Brazilian Law 12,954 of 5 February 2014, creating the National Atlantic Forest Institute.
Land cover and deforestation/secondary vegetation: MapBiomas, Collection 11. Souza et al. (2020), Remote Sensing 12, 2735.
Area burned: MapBiomas Fire, Collection 5. Alencar et al. (2022), Remote Sensing 14, 2510.
GBIF.org occurrence search (facet counts, no records downloaded), queried on the date shown at the top of the page. Each record carries the citation of the dataset that published it on gbif.org.
Boundary and creation year of the Augusto Ruschi Biological Reserve: national protected-area register (CNUC/MMA), as read by Yvynation.
The museum grounds, the Ecoparque and Santa Lúcia have no boundary in the national register: each is read in a disc of fixed area around the point (12, 30 and 440 ha; Santa Lúcia's 440 ha is the area given in Gonçalves & Fernandez, 2024). The disc is a reading window, not a boundary.
Law 12,651/2012 (Forest Code), art. 3, IV: consolidated rural land is land occupied before 22 July 2008. The 2008 picture is Landsat 5 (30 m), a median of the 2007–2009 dry seasons.