Two hundred and fifty kilometres west of Abu Dhabi city, past the last of the coastal development and
well into Al Dhafra, there is an island where giraffes walk past the ruins of a Christian monastery.
Sir Bani Yas is the largest island off the Abu Dhabi coast, 87 square kilometres of
it, one of eight in the Al Dhafra group. It was the private island of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan,
who established it as a Royal Nature Reserve in 1971 — the year before the federation he founded was a
year old. What he began there is now the most ambitious piece of ecological restoration in the country,
and one of its least visited places.
What Sheikh Zayed built
The island was arid. It is not now. The Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi describes the result plainly:
“thanks to decades of conservation work, it is now home to thousands of large free-roaming animals and
several million trees and plants. A bird sanctuary as well as a wildlife reserve.”
You will find precise tree counts quoted elsewhere — two and a half million, three million. The agency
that manages it says “several million” and no more, so neither will we.
A point worth being accurate about, because it is often overstated: Sir Bani Yas is not one of Abu
Dhabi’s formally designated protected areas. The Sheikh Zayed Protected Areas Network comprises 19 sites,
six marine and thirteen terrestrial, and the island is not among them. In Al Dhafra the designated areas
include Al Ramlah — at 544 square kilometres one of the largest — along with Yaw Al Dibsa, Barqa Al
Suqoor, Badaa Hazza, and the Marawah Marine Biosphere Reserve, home to the second largest dugong
population in the world. Sir Bani Yas is something slightly different: a royal nature reserve and bird
sanctuary, managed as such since 1971.
The Arabian Wildlife Park
More than half the island is given over to it, and it holds over 17,000 free-roaming animals.
The species you are most likely to see are Arabian oryx — the animal the reserve exists for — along
with gazelles, giraffes, deer, peacocks and Somali ostrich. There are also cheetahs and striped hyenas,
which you are considerably less likely to see. Dolphins are found in the surrounding water.
The oryx is the point of the whole exercise. It is the animal that came closest to disappearing from
Arabia entirely, and the island was stocked with native species from the 1970s onward as part of the
effort to bring it back. Precise reintroduction dates and current population counts circulate widely; we
could not trace them to a government source, so we are leaving them out rather than repeating them.
Six thousand years of people
The wildlife is the draw. The archaeology is the surprise — there are 42 historical sites on the
island, and the Department of Culture and Tourism has excavated a remarkable sequence.
| Period | What was found |
|---|---|
| Neolithic, 8000–4000 BCE | Islanders quarrying flint from the outcrops, possibly exporting it to neighbouring communities |
| Bronze Age, 3000–1300 BCE | A post associated with Dilmun trade — a merchant’s seal and potsherds carrying traces of bitumen |
| 7th–8th centuries CE | A Christian community settles: a church, a monastery and several courtyard houses |
| Around 1590 | First European mention, by the Italian jeweller and merchant Gasparo Balbi, who links the island to pearl fishing |
The monastery is the find that draws attention, and it is worth getting the date right. Travel sites
routinely call it sixth-century; the culture authority’s own archaeology department dates the settlement
to the seventh and eighth centuries CE. Among the material recovered from the rubble were plaster stucco
panels that once decorated the church walls, carved with crosses, grapes, vines and palm.
A Christian monastic community, living on an island in the Gulf, at the moment Islam was spreading
across the peninsula. It is a more complicated history than the region is usually credited with, and it
sits alongside the pre-Islamic and early Islamic layers our guide to
Al Ain and its UNESCO oases
covers on the mainland.
Getting there
This is the part that keeps visitor numbers low, and it is worth planning properly.
The usual route is by boat from the Jebel Dhanna jetty, roughly 250 km west of Abu Dhabi and 370 km
southwest of Dubai. The speedboat transfer itself takes about 15 to 20 minutes; the whole journey from
Abu Dhabi city runs to around three to three and a half hours. Hotel guests get a complimentary water
taxi, bookable 24 hours ahead.
The alternative is a seaplane operated by Seawings, which takes about 45 minutes and removes the drive
entirely.
Day visits are possible, but not spontaneous. Day passes are booked through the
Anantara activities team, prices are seasonal, and visits have to be booked a month in advance. You will
still find older guidance saying you must be a resort guest to set foot on the island; the current
tourism authority position is that day visits work, with that month of notice. Either way, turning up at
Jebel Dhanna and hoping is not a plan.
The season matters too. November through March is the recommended window — which in Al Dhafra is less
a preference than a practicality.
Why it is worth the trip
Abu Dhabi’s conservation story is usually told through headline projects: the mangrove parks, the solar
plants, the sustainability districts. Our guides to
Masdar City and to
the
emirate’s cultural build-out cover that version of the emirate — deliberate, funded, and visible from
a highway.
Sir Bani Yas is the older, quieter version of the same instinct, started by one man on his own island
half a century ago, before anyone was watching and before there was a tourism strategy to serve. The same
impulse that produced the
Sheikh Zayed Grand
Mosque produced a reforested island with oryx on it. One of them is on every postcard. The other
takes three hours and a booking made a month ago.
If you are flying in for it, our guide to
Zayed International
Airport covers the arrival end.
Primary sources: the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi on
Sir
Bani Yas Island and on the
Sheikh
Zayed Protected Areas Network; the Department of Culture and Tourism on
the
island’s archaeology, its
visitor
guide, the
Arabian
Wildlife Park and the
island
page. Access arrangements and seasonal pricing were checked on 20 August 2026 and change.
