Travel deep dive
Dana Biosphere Reserve: One Reserve, Five Ecosystems
Dana Biosphere Reserve is Jordan's largest protected area and its most biodiverse, and the reason is almost entirely topographic: the reserve drops from roughly 1,500 metres above sea level near Dana village to around 100 metres at its lowest point, a single continuous slope steep enough to pass through five distinct vegetation zones in a matter of kilometres.
Updated 2026-08-15
A 1,400-metre drop that creates five ecosystems
Most protected areas cover one or two ecological zones; Dana's steep drop from Mediterranean-influenced highland forest near the rim down through semi-desert steppe to a genuinely arid, Saharo-Arabian floor means a single day's descent passes through terrain that would otherwise require travelling hundreds of kilometres to experience in sequence. That compressed range of habitat is what supports biodiversity found nowhere else in the region — over 800 recorded plant species and populations of animals including the Nubian ibex, striped hyena and a range of raptors that depend on exactly this kind of undisturbed elevation gradient, largely absent from the more developed and agricultural land surrounding the reserve.
RSCN management and why it matters
The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) manages Dana as part of a network of reserves across Jordan, and its approach here — combining strict protection zones with a deliberately limited, low-impact tourism model — is a large part of why the ecosystem has stayed intact rather than degraded by the grazing and development pressure visible in comparable terrain elsewhere in the country. The RSCN's own eco-lodges within the reserve, including the off-grid, solar-and-candlelight Feynan Ecolodge at the base of the descent, are built around that same model: tourism revenue funding conservation directly rather than tourism and conservation working against each other.
The treks: to Feynan, and toward Petra
The most straightforward route is the two-day descent from Dana village to the Feynan Ecolodge, following the elevation drop through the reserve's changing vegetation zones and typically finishing with a night at the off-grid lodge before returning by vehicle. The more demanding option, the Wadi Ghuweir route, runs two to three days across to Petra itself — following canyon terrain that connects Jordan's two most significant protected and archaeological landscapes on foot, widely considered among the best multi-day hikes in the Middle East for travellers with the time, fitness and (for the Petra-bound route in particular) a guide arranged through the RSCN or a Dana-based operator.