Goba’ad plain

The site is consisted vast alluvial depression with mixture of extensive low acacia scrub, many shallow wadis, and large sandflats and scattered by plateaus. By its geographical location between two other significant IBAs (Lake Abhé and Hanlé plain) and closer to the border with Ethiopia, its avifauna shows elements reflecting a mixture of bird species provided the neighborhood location with Ethiopia. Goba’ad with two other sites in Djibouti is the only site which hosts ostrich with breeding population potentiality. In addition, typical semi-desert species presence include Black –crown sparrow lark, spotted thick-knee, Arabian bustard, Lichtenstein, chestnut-bellied and spotted sandgrouses, whilst wadis which are more vegetated hold yellow-necked spurfowl, yellow_breasted barbet, […]

Goda Massif / Forêt du Day

The Forêt Du Day ecosystem is a dry tropical Afromontane mixed woodland in the Goda Massif mountain ranges in the North of Djibouti with an altitudinal range between c. 1200 m to c. 1750 m and is an Important Bird Area (BirdLife International, 2000). It consists also one of the few forested areas still remaining in the country where, historically, the dominant forest tree was African pencil cedar Juniperus procera, which formed a closed canopy forest until a dramatic decline in the last 20-30 years which left a large proportion of the junipers dead or dying, and the canopy open (Bealey et al., 2006). At higher altitudes, the under storey […]

Godoria / Doumeira

Godoria/Doumeira is consisting of a broad coastal plain lying between Djibouti/Eritrea border with the low hill offshore island of Doumeira to the north, and the hill of Ras Siyyan to the south with extension to Godoria mangroves. This is part of the Rift Valley/Red Sea flyway, the second most important flyway for migratory soaring birds in the world, and is the focus of a conservation initiative by Birdlife for migrating soaring birds (http://www.birdlife.org/migratorysoaringbirds/). Over 1.5 million soaring birds of 37 species (including 5 globally threatened species) use the straits each year to move between Eurasia and Africa.  The Strait is an important migration bottleneck because it is the shortest water […]