Unusually for a state park, it includes an "indigenous special use zone" that allows the Mura people to continue to fish and extract forest products, as they have for many generations.

[3] The park is 91% covered by dense lowland rainforest with emergent canopy, and 7% by grassy wooded savanna, or Amazon campina, without gallery forest.

[6] The Mura people occupy the Cunhã-Sapucaia Indigenous Territory lower down along the Matupiri River, the primary route for accessing the park.

The 2006 study of the creation of the Matupiri Igapó-Açu Mosaic of Conservation Areas did not account for these people, who were noted only for "invading" fishing lakes in the Igapó-Acu Sustainable Development Reserve.

When monitoring of the park began in 2011 traces of Mura presence were indeed found, including house structures, wood work areas and capoeira vegetation in early succession stages.

[7] The Mura have traditionally used the park as a source of wood for their homes and boats, and of Brazil nuts, lianas, copaiba and andiroba oils, açaí, buriti, bacaba, patauá and honey.

There was no legal precedent in Brazil for allowing indigenous people to use the resources of a state park, but Colombia and Peru had defined relevant principles.