Pendjari National Park

Declared in 1961, Pendjari forms part of the transboundary W-Arly-Pendjari complex, shared with Burkina Faso and Niger and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2017 as the largest continuous system of protected savannah in the whole of West Africa. It holds one of the last significant populations of the West African lion, a genetically distinct subspecies far more threatened than the populations of the east and south of the continent, though the region faces growing insecurity as jihadist groups have spread through the Sahel in recent years.