• Summary
• Text account
• Data table and detailed info
• Map
• Reference and further resources

Site description (2001 baseline)
The site lies south-west of Constantine and about 20 km north-west of the town of Batna, in the range of mountains called the Monts de Belezma. These mountains (which reach 2,178 m at Djebel Rafaa, near Col de Telmet) are the northern outlier of the Massif de l’Aurès, which lies at the eastern end of the Hauts Plateaux. The Monts de Belezma have a sub-humid climate with cold winters. There are large areas of Cedrus atlantica forest above 1,300 m. The coordinates are estimated from maps and derived from the town of Col de Telmet and may not accurately reflect the location of the National Park and its boundaries.

Key biodiversity
See Box and Table 2 for key species. There is a colony of Falco naumanni at Col de Telmet and reports of another possible colony at Djebel Chélia in the Massif de l’Aurès, c.70 km to the south-east. There is no additional information concerning these colonies and the status of the species in Algeria generally is poorly known. Most records of the biome-restricted species are from the Massif de l’Aurès region in general, but it is considered valid to suppose that most if not all of these occur in the Parc National du Belezma, providing suitable habitats are present. More survey work will be needed to confirm this and to determine whether the National Park boundaries are also the most appropriate for the IBA. Given the lack of information available at present, the National Park is used to provide a pragmatic, working definition of the site. This is the only IBA in the north of the country from which Ammomanes deserti is recorded.

Non-bird biodiversity: None known to BirdLife International.

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Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Belezma (Algeria). Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/belezma-iba-algeria on 23/12/2024.