Ennedi Natural and Cultural Reserve

Ennedi Natural and Cultural Reserve (ENCR), in north-east Chad, is over 50,000 km2 of natural sculpted landscape marked by cliffs, arches, mushroom rocks, giant labyrinths, and water catchments. Known as the Eden in the Sahara, the Reserve lies within the Ennedi Massif, a mountainous refuge declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016 for its unique natural formations and globally significant rock art. The extraordinary history of human habitation dating back to the Neolithic period is recorded through a multitude of preserved archaeological sites, consisting of engravings, rock paintings and mausoleums – testament to the historic role people have played in this landscape. Despite the harsh climate and environment, some 30,000 community members move through Ennedi every year, their survival depending on the resources the reserve provides.

Prior to African Parks signing a management partnership agreement for Ennedi in 2018 with the Government of Chad, the area had experienced excessive illegal hunting and unsustainable resource extraction. Despite these pressures, the flora and fauna that remain are extraordinary. The reserve is an important sanctuary for over 200 bird species, both permanent residents and transcontinental migrants, as well as iconic, desert-dwelling mammals such as Barbary sheep, dorcas gazelle, and striped hyaena. With the area now benefitting from effective management, wildlife restoration projects have become a reality – a pilot group of addax antelope and a number of red-necked ostriches were successfully reintroduced in 2023. Economic opportunities are growing through the steady development of regulated tourism activities; and a unique education truck is ensuring that environmental education is reaching community members across the vast landscape.

Through holistic management including sound conservation methods, community development, infrastructure and tourism development, Ennedi is becoming a functioning Sahelian-Saharan ecosystem of significant cultural and natural value.

Ennedi Highlights

• After being recognised as a World Heritage Site in 2016, Ennedi was classified as a Natural and Cultural Reserve and is home to one of the most famous gueltas in the Sahara, the Guelta d'Archei.
• To better understand Ennedi’s flora and fauna, a biodiversity inventory is being compiled using the results of aerial surveys for wildlife and domestic fauna, camera traps and other surveys.
• The reintroduction of red-necked ostriches onto the Reserve in 2021, has been successful with a number of healthy chicks born.
• Ennedi is an ecological oasis home to remarkable biodiversity, including a relic population of West African (or desert) crocodile.
• An archaeology inventory has been undertaken with over 1,000 archaeological sites recorded so far.
• With the reintroduction of 10 addax antelope to Ennedi in 2023, the species is now present in the landscape for the first time since the 1970s.
• Over 2,400 people are being reached annually with the “Les Petits Mouflons” environmental educational truck.

 

Partners

In February 2018, a management partnership agreement for Ennedi was formally signed between African Parks and Government of the Republic of Chad. Our shared long-term vision for Ennedi is to restore its natural and cultural assets, reintroducing species that lived here before, and to recreate a representation of the Sindian-Saharan and Sahelian biomes in Africa, which are no longer found anywhere else in the entire Sahel region.

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