Saudi Arabia - Bioclimatic Refugia of Western Arabia

01 Jabal ad-Dubbagh / Jabal al-Lawz 28° 7.800’ N 35°35.900’ E 02 Jibal Qaraqir / Wadi al-Disah 27°40.200’ N 36°29.500’ E 03 Jabal Aja 27°25.600’ N 41°25.200’ E 04 Jabal Radwa 24°34.800’ N 38°12.200’ E 05 Jabal Batharah / Wadi Turabah 20°27.600’ N 41°12.800’ E 06 Jabal Shada 19°48.200’ N 41°20.200’ E 07 Wadi Lajb / Jabal al-Qahar 17°37.300’ N 42°55.200’ E The Bioclimatic Refugia of Western Arabia are a serial site comprising the most important mountain crests, woodlands, and wetlands that harbour relict assemblages of plant and animal species in the western part of the Arabian Peninsula. As relatively cool, moist “islands” in a predominantly arid and semiarid subcontinent, they represent the most outstanding hotspots of terrestrial biodiversity and the most important sites for endemism, reliction, and speciation, as well as the most critically vital sites to conserve these processes under the pressures of global climate change. With the opening of the Red Sea, the western edge of the Arabian Plate was uplifted, forming the Sarawat mountain range, which runs the length of the Arabian Peninsula and forms a series of escarpments reaching two to three kilometres above sea level. Throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs, fluctuating climates have shaped the flora and fauna of the Arabian subcontinent, centred between Africa and Eurasia. In humid periods, waves of animals and plants have flooded in from northeast Africa and southwest Asia. In arid periods, the less desert-adapted species have withdrawn to the cool, moist mountain heights that are Arabia’s bioclimatic refugia. These refugia are the main sites of reliction, endemism, and speciation on Arabia’s landmass, and they are the sites of its highest terrestrial biodiversity. The serial site spans the length of the Sarawat mountains within Saudi Arabia, from the Yemen boundary to the Jordan boundary; it represents the full spectrum of biogeographic zones, regional centres of endemism, Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspot sites, sites of relict Mediterranean and Irano-Turanian elements, and patches of Arabian valley forest. All sites in Saudi Arabia that are believed to encompass outstanding universal value as bioclimatic refugia and that show a high level of integrity have been included in the series.