Gabal Elba National Park: biodiversity in danger

CAIRO –27 July 2017: Gabal Elba National Park is one of the most important and biggest national parks in Egypt. It is located in the south-east corner of Egypt, and it stretches over 35,600 square kilometers, covering 3.6 percent of Egypt’s total area.

The park contains many natural, human and cultural resources, from wildlife, medical and economic plants and local tribes, cultures, and ancient drawings and artifacts, besides geological and mineral treasures and water resources such as sweet water wills and springs; in addition to many Red Sea islands within the park that contain sea turtles and many types of inhabitants and migrant birds, and many types of Mangrove trees which are of economic and environmental value.

Gabal Elba Park is ecologically diverse in its wildlife resources and even in its human resources as the local tribes that live there have their unique culture, traditions and customs, but there are 10 threats to Gabal Elba’s biodiversity and they are:

1- The hunting of wild animals.

2- Hunting and collecting sea creatures.

3- Farming inside the national park.

4- Carbonization.

5- Logging and collecting wood.

6- Drought and climate changes.

7- The changes of land owners and their uses of the lands of the national park.

8- Harvesting and collecting medical plants.

9-The invading species in the national park.

10- Threats such as mining, petrifaction, and collecting plants and wild animals.


Gabal Elba, Egypt-Courtesy of Wikimedia commons/Ahmedehab1