One of the most recently protected areas is the White Desert of Farafra Oasis, about which writers and travellers have waxed lyrical. The White Desert itself is completely within the depression of Farafra, running north of Qasr Farafra to the north-eastern escarpment and here the blinding white chalk of the depression can be seen at its best together with the inselbergs with which it is dotted. The desert floor is also scattered with thousands of concretions of iron pyrites that have oxidized and become black and eroded into a huge variety of shapes and sizes. The inselbergs, which grow larger towards the northeast, are embedded with great numbers of seashells of various shapes and sizes. This is indeed an area of outstanding natural beauty that deserves its protected status.
The protected area also includes two small uninhabited oases and the vegetated Wadi Hennis and Karawein Depression. Very large, old specimens of Acacia nilotica in the area are relicts that are of special scientific interest. This area is one of the last refuges of the endangered Slender-horned Gazelle, Gazella leptoceros, and was formerly to the endangered Barbary sheep, Ammotragus lervia.