Ayubia

Ayubia National Park was established in 1984 in the Galyat region, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in northern Pakistan, and at some 34 km² it is one of the country's smallest national parks. It bears the name of President Ayub Khan.

It protects a fragment of moist temperate forest of the western Himalaya, between 1,300 and 2,800 metres, with blue pine, Himalayan fir, deodar cedar and oak, on steep slopes. It is one of the few blocks of this forest type preserved in Pakistan, in a region where the pressure of firewood cutting and grazing has severely degraded the forest cover.

Its proximity to Islamabad and to the hill stations of Murree and Nathiagali makes it one of the most visited areas in the country, with the pressure that entails. The best-known route is the Pipeline Track, a path following the line of an old water conduit along the hillside. The park is home to the common leopard, whose conflicts with livestock and with the people of the surrounding villages are a recurring management problem, as well as rhesus macaque, koklass pheasant and a flying squirrel endemic to the western Himalaya.