Green peaks and terraced slopes rise into low cloud above the Paul valley on Santo Antao.

Heritage

Paul Valley: Visitor and Heritage Guide

Some experts call this the greatest center of plant biodiversity in the archipelago. It is also where the water is, which is the same story.

Country Cape Verde
Category Heritage
Reviewed 20 August 2026
Sources 2
Length 2 min read

Credit CaptainDarwin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Parc Naturel Cova, Paul et Ribeira da Torre, on Santo Antao, is on Cape Verde's Tentative List, submitted in 2016. It is not inscribed. The figures are the country's own.

Altitude in the park runs from about four hundred meters at Xoxo to 1,585 meters at Pico da Cruz.

Why it is green

Above a thousand meters the park is dominated by a volcanic crater, Cova, by woodland of pine, eucalyptus and grevillea, and by peaks and escarpments falling into deep valleys that open to the sea: Ribeira da Torre and Paul.

The submission attributes the vegetation to a microclimate combining three things: altitude, the aspect of the slopes, and hidden precipitation. That last is the mechanism that makes these islands habitable at height. Cloud moves against a mountain and condenses on vegetation, and the vegetation waters itself and the ground below it.

The State Party calls the park one of the island's most emblematic humid mountain ecosystems and one of the most important agricultural ecosystems in the country, and adds that some experts consider it the greatest center of plant biodiversity in the archipelago, with the largest variety of endemic plants.

Visiting

The park is on Santo Antao, reached by ferry from Sao Vicente.
The valleys are walked. This is the country's hiking terrain.
Gradients are severe and paths are often cobbled and steep.
Cloud at height is the point of the place and also means wet rock.
Villages in the valleys are lived in and farmed. Ask before photographing people.

Sources

The altitudes, the woodland composition, the microclimate and the biodiversity claim are from Cape Verde's Tentative List submission, entry 6105, submitted in 2016, written in French and paraphrased here. Read on 20 August 2026. The biodiversity claim is attributed by the submission to some experts, and is reported here as the submission reports it.