Nabq

The Nabq Protected Area was declared in 1992 on the eastern coast of the Sinai peninsula, north of Sharm el-Sheikh, on the Gulf of Aqaba, and protects some 600 km² of land and sea.

Its most cited feature is the Nabq mangrove, a stand of Avicennia marina regarded as the most northerly in the world: it grows at about twenty-eight degrees north, at the absolute limit of the species' thermal tolerance, on a wind-beaten coastal strip with no freshwater input. The mangrove supports a community of birds and associated marine life and acts as a fish nursery.

Off the coast extends a well-preserved fringing reef, with seagrass meadows where dugongs and green turtles feed, and on the shore stands the wreck of the Maria Schröder, a cargo ship that ran aground in 1956 and is still visible on the reef. Inland the landscape is one of mobile dunes, wadis and igneous rock mountains, with scattered acacias, dorcas gazelle and fox. The area is inhabited by the Muzeina Bedouin community, whose traditional rights of use over the territory are recognised within the protection regime.