Ichkeul

Declared in 1980, it protects Lake Ichkeul and the wetland around it, the last survivor of a chain of freshwater lakes that once stretched across North Africa and has all but vanished elsewhere in the region through agricultural drainage and dam building. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980 and a Ramsar wetland of international importance, serving as a critical resting place for hundreds of thousands of migratory waterbirds that cross each year between Europe and Africa through the narrow corridor of the western Mediterranean. Several dams built on the rivers feeding the lake through the closing decades of the 20th century altered its natural water regime, which put it on the List of World Heritage in Danger between 1996 and 2006.