Since 1993, Carlos and Elisabeth Soares have owned a recreational home in the Recreio da Serra locality — a residential subdivision.  In the early 2000s, they started birdwatching in the area.  In search of rarer species, the couple often went to the farthest and most preserved regions of the Recreio da Serra, away from the noise of residences, vehicle traffic, and domestic animals with hunting instincts.

Carlos has a degree in Business Administration, and he studied Biology, which pushed him to seek more knowledge about the science of nature conservation — particularly birds.  He has become self-taught and has built up a rich natural history library, with an emphasis on ornithology, biogeography, and biodiversity.  Elisabeth is a civil engineer and worked for 32 years in the areas of project design and execution.  She lived part of her childhood in the interior of Paraná state, on the edge of a still intact remnant of another southern Brazil ecosystem — the Araucaria Forest. Living in this region sharpened her early interest in tropical forests and the multiple forms of life that exist there.

Around 2006, worried about the growing real estate expansion in more accessible and valued regions of Recreio da Serra, Carlos and Elisabeth realized that the forest refuges where they used to walk could soon be replaced or negatively impacted by changes over landspace and noise pollution.  The areas they had visited in search of birds, at least the most significant ones, required protection to ensure, in some way, their biological and landscape integrity. So, they decided to start a wide-ranging survey to find out how many properties existed in the most preserved areas, who owned them, and if there was a possibility of acquiring  areas of this previously designed mosaic within Recreio da Serra.

Based on this survey, Carlos and Elisabeth searched notary offices, Piraquara City Hall records, and tax foreclosure courts. They mapped out three distinct regions in the Recreio da Serra, classifying them as priorities for nature conservation.  After careful analysis, they invested in planning for the acquisition of three blocks of lots in the southern part of Recreio da Serra. The chosen lots were bordered by small properties already consolidated as leisure homes and a significant area used as environmental offsets by a local company.  Overall, the strategy designed by the couple encompassed areas with relevant portions of vegetation in an advanced stage of conservation and several springs of the Iraizinho river, a tributary of the Iguassu River.

In March 2011, Carlos and Elisabeth started the acquisition process for most of the selected properties.  This was time-consuming and difficult, and many acquired areas required tax settlements and other arrangements, which were patiently worked out. Ten years passed and a mosaic of 18 urban properties was acquired, totaling 129.2 thousand square meters.

​

The next steps in this endeavor were the installation of improvements and equipment, such as the canalization of the mineral water from the spring, the opening of interpretative trails, and the construction of a tower for wildlife observation and surveillance of the area. Later, associating two abundant natural resources in the area — the birdlife and the water spring ("nascente" in Portuguese) — Carlos and Elisabeth found the ideal name for the future Private Natural Heritage Reserve (RPPN): Observatório Ornitológico Nascentes do Iguaçu (Nascentes do Iguaçu Ornithological Observatory).

​

 

The process of creating the RPPN, the last step taken by Carlos and Elisabeth until now, was formally initiated in March 2022 and completed in July of the same year, at the Paraná state governmental jurisdiction. Based on this process, it will be set in the near future the Management Plan for the RPPN, the parameters that will guide scientific research, environmental education actions, and partnerships with companies aiming to obtain certifications and environmental compensation mechanisms.