Between NEOM, the Red Sea and AlUla
The reserve fills the land between NEOM, the Red Sea destination and AlUla, and is run from Al Wajh. Its own figures give it 24,500 km² of land and sea, about 1% of the Kingdom's land area and 1.8% of its marine area. From lava plains in the east it runs to the Red Sea coast and the deep water beyond, across 15 distinct ecosystems.
Geologists prize it for rocks of both the Arabian Shield and the Arabian Shelf more than 542 million years old. In its north-west, Wadi al-Disah has tall rock pillars, cliffs, freshwater springs, palm groves and Nabataean tomb facades, and is on UNESCO's tentative list as a bioclimatic refugium of western Arabia.
Counting what lives here
Surveys since 2021, with partners including KAUST, have recorded 791 terrestrial species: 461 plants, 240 birds, 39 reptiles, 18 bats and 31 rodents and large mammals, over half the Kingdom's terrestrial species. In December 2024 the reserve announced five species new to science, among them the Hejaz black-collared snake, small, non-venomous and bright red. In 2024 three breeding colonies of the Eurasian griffon vulture were found in the sandstone mountains of its Jabal Qaraqir section.
Rewilding Arabia
The reserve aims to reintroduce 23 species once native to the area, among them the Arabian leopard, the cheetah, the Arabian oryx and the lappet-faced vulture. In November 2024 the National Center for Wildlife released 80 animals here, including 40 rhim gazelles, 20 Arabian oryx, eight Nubian ibex and six mountain gazelles. In 2021 it formed the Middle East's first female ranger corps; women now make up 36% of its rangers.