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AMMAN — The Dana Biosphere Reserve’s Rummanah campsite has reopened for tourists with the advent of spring, according to its director, Amer Rfou.
The Rummanah Campsite opens for tourists in spring and closes in November every year when temperatures at the reserve, which features steep mountains, deep valleys and plains, dip, Rfou said on Wednesday.
The Dana Biosphere Reserve houses a range of tourist facilities, including a guesthouse and an eco-lodge, Rfou said, underscoring that only the campsite is shut down during winter.
Regional turmoil and the lack of security in many neighbouring countries caused a drop in the number of visitors to the reserve, especially since tourists used to come to Jordan as part of a package that included Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
“Figures indicate that the number of tourists to the reserve is improving. Last year was a good season, and we expect it to continue this year,” Rfou told The Jordan Times.
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.