‘Dana reserve looks to attract more visitors this year after 33% drop’

AMMAN — The number of visitors to the Dana Biosphere Reserve is expected to increase this year due to plans to support local and foreign tourism, Dana Biosphere Reserve Director Amer Rfou said Thursday.

With the number of tourists to the reserve gradually dropping over the past five years due to regional instability, Rfou highlighted that the government’s plan to encourage local and foreign tourism will improve the situation.

“The reserve has lost more than one-third of its tourists since 2010 due to safety concerns in the region, especially since the majority of visitors to Dana reserve come as part of a package that includes other countries like Syria and Egypt,” he told The Jordan Times.

In 2010, the reserve received 50,000 tourists, according to Rfou, who said that the number of visitors dropped by 33 per cent since then.

But despite the drop, the reserve has been able to cover its operational costs and benefit the local community.

“We have covered the majority of our budget, while the local community around Dana Biosphere Reserve generated JD1.2 million,” Rfou underscored.

He noted that the reserve’s 85 employees are all from the local community, which also supplies the reserve with its needs.

Rfou said the reserve’s Rummanah campsite reopened last week with the start of spring, noting that it opens for tourists in spring and closes in November every year when temperatures drop.

The Dana Biosphere Reserve, which features steep mountains, deep valleys and plains, houses a range of tourist facilities, including a guesthouse and an ecolodge, Rfou said, underscoring that only the campsite is shut down during winter.

Spread over 300 square kilometres, the reserve is located in Tafileh Governorate, 180km southwest of the capital.

Dana is Jordan’s largest and most diverse nature reserve with 833 types of vegetation constituting 50 per cent of the total flora in the country.

Established in 1989, the nature reserve is globally important for being the southernmost remaining forest community of pencil pine and for containing three rare plants that exist only in Dana and are named after the area: Silene danansis, Micromeria danaensis and Rubia danaeansis.

Dana is also an important bird-watching site as it is home to 216 kinds of birds, many of which are globally threatened, and 38 mammals, mainly the Nubian ibex, Eurasian lynx, hyenas and Blanford’s fox.