Banc d'Arguin

Declared in 1976, it protects a long stretch of Atlantic coast where the Sahara meets the ocean head-on, forming sandbanks, islets and extensive intertidal flats that support one of the greatest concentrations of wintering waterbirds on the planet, with several million migratory birds from Europe and Siberia spending the northern winter here. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1989 and is a Ramsar site of international importance. The Imraguen fishing community, the only traditional inhabitants allowed within the park, have for centuries practised an unusual form of cooperative fishing in which wild dolphins actively help drive shoals of fish — mullet above all — towards the nets of the fishermen waiting on the shore, a piece of cooperation between people and wild cetaceans documented in very few places in the world.