St Katherine Protectorate

The 4350-sq-km St Katherine Protectorate was created in 1996 to counteract the detrimental effects of rapidly increasing tourism on St Catherine’s Monastery and the adjacent Mt Sinai. In addition to the area’s unique high-altitude desert ecosystem, it protects a wealth of historical sites sacred to the world’s three main monotheistic religions, and the core part around the monastery has been declared a Unesco World Heritage site.