[2] Prominent among them is the addax antelope, which is categorized under the IUCN Red List as one of the rarest and most endangered species in the world; about 300 of them are reported in the reserve.

[3] The earliest reported exploration of the Termit Massif reserve area was by Saharan explorers Dixon Denham and Hugh Clapperton, Heinrich Barth, Gustav Nachtigal, Vischer and Buchanan who recorded the enormous amount of game found in the reserve.

[3] The proposal to declare this reserve as a UNESCO World Heritage Site was submitted on 26 May 2006 under Criteria of Natural vii, on account of its biodiversity values and its cultural importance.

WWF has classified this reserve as part of the larger ecoregion of the South Saharan Steppe and Woodlands ecoregion that includes a strip of desert land that extends from central Mauritania, Mali, southwestern Algeria, Niger, Chad, and across Sudan to the Red Sea, and borders southern fringes of the Sahara Desert along the Saharan-Sahelian region, where the climate progressively becomes semi-arid.

[5] People's sustenance in the region is largely dependent on pastoralism, rainfed agriculture, irrigation near oases and cattle grazing.

[4] The massif is home to human settlements of tribes of Toubou people whose basic vocation is farming (livestock and agriculture) with rearing of camels, goats, and a limited number of sheep.

[8] Many IUCN Red Listed endangered species such as addax, dama and Dorcas gazelles, Saharan cheetah, Barbary sheep and striped hyena survive in large numbers.

[14] The reserve's vegetation consists of a steppe of Acacia-Panicum species on the western and southern sides of the massif.

Grassy steppe species Panicum turgidum, Indigofera sessiliflora or Danthonia forskalii dominate the eastern part of the reserve.

Hence, its conservation has received the active support of the Termit regional programme jointly funded by the Government of Niger, the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), the Fonds Français pour l’Environnement Mondial (FFEM), the Association Française des Volontaires du Progrès (AFVP) and the Sahara Conservation Fund (SCF).