Gebel Elba

The Gebel Elba Protected Area was declared in 1986 at the south-eastern tip of Egypt, in the Eastern Desert next to the Red Sea, and at some 35,600 km² it is the country's largest protected area.

Its exceptional feature is climatic. The Elba massif, which rises above 1,400 metres a short distance from the coast, intercepts the moisture arriving from the Red Sea and condenses it as mist and dew, generating a water supply far greater than the extremely scant rainfall. The result is a mist oasis: the sea-facing slopes are covered in dense vegetation of acacias, dragon trees and shrubs that has no equivalent anywhere else in Egypt and that belongs biogeographically to the Afrotropical world, not the Saharan.

That uniqueness explains why the area holds a very high proportion of the Egyptian flora and species that exist nowhere else in the country. Its wildlife includes dorcas gazelle, Nubian ibex, striped hyena and a birdlife with African elements. The territory also includes the Halaib Triangle, a border strip whose sovereignty is disputed between Egypt and Sudan, which conditions the management of and access to the area. It is inhabited by Beja communities, among them the Bishari and the Ababda, with a traditional pastoral way of life.