The AEWA Secretariat is pleased to announce that Tunisia has become the 52nd Contracting Party to AEWA as of 1st of October 2005. Located in northern Africa, between Algeria to the east and Libya to the west, Tunisia has a coastline of over 1300 km bordering the Mediterranean Sea. The climate of the country is mainly Mediterranean with an increasing Saharan influence in the south.

Tunisia is home to over 10 million people and is rich in biodiversity, supporting a number of endemic and endangered species, including several waterbird species. Despite its relatively small area, Tunisia has a rich avifauna of about 360 species, of which a number are covered by the Agreement, some of them with an unfavourable conservation status e.g. the White-headed Duck (Oxyura leucocephala), the Marbled Duck (Marmaronetta angustirostris), the Audouin's Gull (Larus audouinii), the Corn Crake (Crex crex) and the Slender-billed Curlew (Numenius tenuirostris).

Tunisia's variety of wetlands, ranging from natural freshwater lakes, seasonal salt-lakes, pans and coastal lagoons, as well as the littoral (most notably the Gulf of Gabes) are important wintering areas for waders and other waterbird species in the Mediterranean. Its geographical location also makes the country an important stop-over site for trans-Saharan Palearctic migration, particularly in spring, when the country's oases offer the first green and wet areas after the long northward migration across the Sahara Desert.

Tunisia is also a Contracting Party to a number of other environment-related Conventions, such as the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Convention on Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), the Ramsar Convention, and others.

The AEWA Secretariat welcomes Tunisia as latest new member of the growing ‘AEWA Family’.