This Ramsar Site in the Tassili n’Ajjer region in south-east Algeria was extended from 6,500 hectares to almost 58,000 ha in 2018. La Vallée d’Iherir is a high valley (between 1,100 and 1,400 metres in altitude) in the centre of a limestone Saharan plateau characterized by intermittent streams, lakes, and marshes, freshwater springs, and subterranean karst hydrological systems. The isolated nature of the Site has led to remarkable evolutionary phenomena, particularly for species which have been able to adapt to the desertification of the area, such as lizards, snakes, and four species of fish. The Site also hosts threatened mammal species such as the vulnerable Barbary sheep Ammotragus lervia and Dorcas gazelle Gazella dorcas. The Tuareg communities on terraces above the valley floor culitvate date palms and figs, and vegetables in shaded areas. The rocky mountain walls bear rich pictorial evidence of some of the first human inhabitants of the Sahara; this has encouraged significant tourism, which is beginning to recover after being drastically reduced between 1992 and 2000.