The Jabal al Akhdar is an anomaly in the North African landscape: a humid, forested massif rising from the arid coast of Cyrenaica. El Kouf sits within this green corridor, and the combination of terrestrial and marine environments within its boundaries creates an unusually diverse habitat for the region. On land, the park's recorded fauna includes the striped hyena, Egyptian wolf, wild boar, fallow deer, red fox, small-spotted genet, African wildcat, crested porcupine, and the Barbary macaque -- one of only a handful of primate species native to Africa north of the Sahara. The park's coastline adds another layer: short-beaked common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins inhabit the offshore waters and lagoons, while loggerhead sea turtles crawl ashore to lay their eggs on the beaches.

El Kouf lies within the Jabal al Akhdar Important Bird Area, designated by BirdLife International in recognition of the region's significance as both a breeding ground and a migration stopover point. The park's bird list reads like an inventory of Mediterranean and North African raptor species: golden eagles, Egyptian vultures, and numerous other birds of prey patrol the skies above the escarpments. On the ground and along the coast, Barbary partridges, common quails, great bustards, and Houbara bustards share space with black storks, white storks, and sandgrouse. Herons, ducks, and waders congregate in the wetland areas, while greater flamingos appear on the beaches. Green peafowl, introduced to the park, add an incongruous splash of color among the native species.

When El Kouf opened in 1975, it quickly became one of Libya's most visited natural attractions. By 1980, the park was drawing roughly 100,000 tourists annually, a figure that swelled to around 300,000 by 1985. Yet behind these numbers was an institution struggling to function. For years the park operated with very few staff assigned specifically to wildlife conservation duties. A 1991 assessment found El Kouf to be poorly managed and inadequately regulated. The gap between the park's ecological importance and its institutional capacity remained a persistent problem. Libya's broader protected-area network -- which includes seven national parks, five reserves, twenty-four additional protected areas, and two wetlands registered under the Ramsar Convention since 2000 -- has faced similar challenges in balancing conservation ambitions with the resources and stability needed to sustain them.

El Kouf's predicament is the predicament of conservation in a country where political upheaval has repeatedly overtaken environmental policy. The park's habitats remain biologically significant: the combination of Mediterranean forest, coastal scrub, marine environments, and brackish lagoons within a compact area is rare in North Africa. The Barbary macaque populations, the nesting sea turtles, and the resident raptor species represent conservation priorities that extend well beyond Libya's borders. Whether the park can fulfill its ecological potential depends on questions of governance and stability that have gone unanswered for decades. What El Kouf demonstrates, even in its neglected state, is that the Libyan coast harbors far more life than its reputation suggests -- a green mountain where hyenas, eagles, and dolphins share a landscape that most of the world has overlooked.