Souss-Massa

Souss-Massa National Park was created in 1991 on the Atlantic coast of south-western Morocco, south of Agadir, and protects some 337 km² taking in the estuaries of the Souss and Massa rivers, dunes, cliffs and coastal steppe.

Its international importance is ornithological and very specific: the park's cliffs hold the only stable wild population of the northern bald ibis, one of the most threatened birds on the planet. The species once ranged across North Africa, the Middle East and southern central Europe, and today is reduced almost entirely to this Moroccan colony, the subject of intensive monitoring and protection that have allowed the population to grow slowly from critical lows.

The park also holds an acclimatisation enclosure where Saharan ungulates lost from Morocco have been bred and reintroduced, among them the scimitar-horned oryx, extinct in the wild, the addax and the dama gazelle. The estuaries are an important stop on the Atlantic migration route, with flamingos, spoonbills and waders, and the park lies within the Arganeraie Biosphere Reserve, recognised by UNESCO on 8 December 1998, which protects the argan, a tree endemic to south-western Morocco.