Monte Nimba

The Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1981 for the Guinean part and extended in 1982 with the Ivorian part, forming a transboundary property. The massif rises at the point where Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia converge, and its summit stands above 1,750 metres.

Its singularity is ecological: above the lowland rainforest that covers the region, the high slopes of Nimba are occupied by mountain grassland, a habitat that has functioned as an isolated biological island for millions of years. That isolation has produced extraordinary endemism, with more than two hundred species found nowhere but the massif. Two are especially notable: the Nimba viviparous toad, one of the very few amphibians in the world that neither lays eggs nor passes through a larval stage but gives birth to fully formed young, and the otter shrew, a small aquatic mammal of very ancient lineage.

The massif also contains one of the largest and highest-grade iron ore deposits in the world, and that wealth is its threat. The property was placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 1992 because of the mining projects and the mass arrival of people fleeing the Liberian conflict, and it remains there. The iron ore projects on the Guinean side continue to be monitored by the Committee.