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Tuesday, 2 July 2019
The World Heritage Committee, meeting in Baku since 30 June, decided to remove the site of Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works (Chile) from the List of World Heritage in Danger thanks to the national authorities’ measures to ensure its sustainable conservation and management.
The Saltpeter Works were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2005 and, simultaneously, on the List of ...
2 min read
Sunday, 30 June 2019
The opening ceremony of this year’s session of the World Heritage Committee was held on 30 June at the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku, marking the start of the Committee’s work, scheduled to continue until 10 July.
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay welcomed the enthusiasm for World Heritage and “its exceptional ability to bring people together.” She urged “respect for the spirit of the ...
2 min read
Thursday, 27 June 2019
20-22 June: African academics and heritage experts met in the city of Teramo, in the Abruzzo region of Italy, to unpack the concept of ‘prevention’ as a tool for sustainable development, emphasizing the need to place the youth in the centre of this concept by making it relevant to them.
Organized under the theme “Protection of cultural and natural heritage and resources through prevention: ...
2 min read
Wednesday, 26 June 2019
Tuesday, June 25 - Recent flooding and the security situation threaten the preservation of the Minaret and Archaeological Remains of Jam, Afghanistan. UNESCO will send a mission to the site and launch a safeguarding project, thanks to funding from the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH) of USD 1.9 million.
The Minaret of Jam is exposed to several ...
2 min read
Friday, 21 June 2019
The World Heritage Committee will examine 36 nominations for inscription on UNESCO’s World Heritage List during its 43rd session, which will take place in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, from 30 June to 10 July under the chair of Abulfas Garayev, Minister of Culture of Azerbaijan.
The Committee will furthermore examine the state of conservation of 166 sites already inscribed on the World ...
3 min read
Thursday, 20 June 2019
Heritage authorities from six heritage cities in Asia, Pacific and Africa gather in George Town, Penang, Malaysia, from 20 to 21 June 2019 to attend a workshop entitled “Experience Sharing Workshop on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Strategy among Heritage Cities in Southeast Asia, Pacific and Africa“ held by UNESCO Office Jakarta in collaboration with George Town World Heritage Incorporated ...
2 min read
Tuesday, 18 June 2019
As a global report released a month ago shows, the world’s ecosystems and biodiversity are deteriorating faster than at any time in human history, undermining humanity’s well-being and future existence.
The Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, released by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in early May, ...
2 min read
Friday, 14 June 2019
The UNESCO-Africa-China Forum on World Heritage Capacity Building and Cooperation, held at UNESCO Headquarters from 3 – 4 June 2019, concluded with Recommendations and an Action Plan for joint projects supporting long-term capacity building for the safeguarding of African World Heritage properties. It was attended by ministers, decision-makers, World Heritage site managers, academics and ...
3 min read
Friday, 14 June 2019
Following the devastating fire at Mount Kenya National Park in February 2019 and the subsequent rampaging wildfire at Simien Mountains National Park in April 2019, UNESCO organized a capacity-building workshop in disaster risk management for World Heritage site managers and other stakeholders from Kenya and Ethiopia from 11 to 14 June 2019 at Mount Kenya World Heritage site in Nanyuki ...
3 min read
Tuesday, 11 June 2019
“Heritage it is an inherent part of our identity. It is a way to understand each other better” mentioned Victoria Kelly, one of the participants to the European Young Heritage Professionals Forum that gathered young practitioners with a background in both tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Participants came from the 28 Member States of the European Union to discuss the multifaceted ...
1 min read
Saturday, 8 June 2019
This World Oceans Day, 8 June, is dedicated to gender and the ocean. To celebrate the day, UNESCO honours all women whose scientific work is enhancing the conservation of the 49 marine sites inscribed on the World Heritage List. Discover the fascinating work of some of these women scientists through the videos below.
Ocean science is crucial for the protection and conservation of World ...
2 min read
Wednesday, 5 June 2019
This year, World Environment Day is focused on air pollution. Almost all of us are affected by it: 92 per cent of people worldwide do not breathe clean air.
So in 2019, those celebrating World Environment Day will urge governments, industry, communities, and individuals to come together to explore renewable energy and green technologies, and improve air quality in cities across the ...
1 min read
Tuesday, 4 June 2019
The three countries agree on a roadmap to explore the boundary extension of the Okavango Delta World Heritage site to protect the river basin and the unique wetland system.
The States Parties of Angola, Botswana and Namibia met in Maun in Botswana on 3-4 June 2019 to discuss transboundary cooperation and ways to improve conservation of the Okavango Delta (Botswana) World Heritage site ...
2 min read
Tuesday, 4 June 2019
The Yaksu-ri and Susan-ri tombs, two exceptional testaments to the civilisation of the Koguryo kingdom, were successfully conserved thanks to the UNESCO/Republic of Korea Funds-in-Trust project “Safeguarding of Koguryo Tombs in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)”, coordinated by UNESCO and implemented since 2000 in three consecutive phases. The property includes about 30 tombs ...
2 min read
Friday, 31 May 2019
The team of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre would like to express its sadness after learning that former President of ICOMOS International, Prof Michael Petzet passed away on 30 May 2019.
The passing away of Michael Petzet represents an important loss for the conservation community. His strong opinions were always a reflection of his unerring commitment to excellence in the conservation of ...
1 min read
Tuesday, 28 May 2019
On 3 and 4 June, the UNESCO-Africa-China Forum on World Heritage Capacity Building and Cooperation will seek to strengthen collaboration between Africa and China in the preservation of World Heritage. It will also provide an opportunity to take stock of the sustainable development challenges facing World Heritage sites in both China and Africa and foster the sharing of experience in this ...
2 min read
Friday, 24 May 2019
This World Oceans Day, 8 June, will be dedicated to gender and the ocean. To celebrate the day, UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the World Heritage Centre are teaming up to honour all women whose scientific work is enhancing the conservation of the 49 marine sites inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Join up and send us your short video by 31 May 2019.
Everyone ...
1 min read
Wednesday, 22 May 2019
An outstanding video of Cameroon’s Dja Faunal Reserve and the Sangha TriNational submitted by Ancel Langwa won the first prize in the Instagram video contest organized by the World Heritage Centre (WHC) and the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF) on the occasion of the fourth edition of African World Heritage Day (5 May). The contest closed on Monday, May 20, 2019. The 27 submitted videos ...
1 min read
Wednesday, 22 May 2019
This year’s International Day for Biological Diversity focuses on biodiversity as the foundation for our food and health and as a key catalyst to transforming food systems and improving human well-being. The World Heritage Convention recognizes some World Heritage properties specifically for their outstanding biodiversity values, protecting many of the most important ecosystems and areas of ...
2 min read
Monday, 20 May 2019
The World Heritage Centre organized a series of testing sessions for the on‑line tool of the World Heritage Policy Compendium. These testing sessions, which took place between April and May 2019, gathered feedback and comments from key World Heritage stakeholders on the Policy Compendium On‑line Tool, currently being developed by the World Heritage Centre.
The consultation is carried out ...
1 min read
Friday, 17 May 2019
The latest version of the World Heritage map, produced by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and National Geographic Maps with the support of Azerbaijan, can now be ordered from the World Heritage Centre website.
The featured image on the map presents the Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's Palace and Maiden Tower World Heritage property in Azerbaijan, country hosting the next session ...
1 min read
Friday, 17 May 2019
28 young heritage professionals with diverse backgrounds varying from ethnomusicology to architecture and visual computing technologies will come together for the European Young Heritage Professionals Forum to address for the first time both tangible heritage and intangible cultural heritage and to explore the potential synergies and challenges of their protection and safeguarding in the ...
1 min read
Thursday, 16 May 2019
The panel on ‘Heritage and Water’ during the UNESCO International Water Conference (13-14 May at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris) highlighted the spiritual and cultural significance of water at many heritage sites, and called for enhancing cooperation between planners and practitioners to demonstrate the importance of water management systems to policymakers.They also emphasized the need to ...
1 min read
Friday, 10 May 2019
This year’s World Migratory Bird Day is dedicated to highlighting the problem of pollution with the theme, ‘Protect Birds: Be the Solution to Plastic Pollution.’
Waste and pollution are harmful to many World Heritage sites. Increased tourism means that more people are leaving trash at the world’s most iconic places. World Heritage sites are key stopover sites for birds, so the effective ...
2 min read
Thursday, 9 May 2019
A year-long process of discussion and collaboration regarding the update to Peru’s Tentative List culminated in April with the unanimous approval of the new proposal that will guide the country’s World Heritage strategy over the coming years.
The process involved an extensive preparatory and research phase, two national-level workshops, and permanent collaboration between the authorities ...
3 min read
Monday, 6 May 2019
Describing nature’s decline as unprecedented and citing among many indicators, 1,000,000 species threatened with extinction, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) laid bare the threats to all life on earth in its Global Assessement Report, released at UNESCO headquarters today.
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay says the report put ...
3 min read
Monday, 6 May 2019
Launched at UNESCO in Paris on Monday 6 May, the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) sends an alarming message to the world. Ecosystems and biodiversity are deteriorating faster than at any time in human history, undermining humanity’s well-being and future ...
3 min read
Friday, 3 May 2019
Since 2016, we have been celebrating African World Heritage Day on 5 May. Proclaimed by the General Conference at its 38th session in 2015, this day was established to raise public awareness, among young people in particular, of the immense potential of the African cultural and natural heritage. For this fourth celebration, we would like not only to celebrate the richness of this heritage, ...
2 min read
Thursday, 2 May 2019
The UNESCO World Heritage Centre is pleased to publish the selected projects for the World Heritage Volunteers (WHV) Campaign 2019
What is the World Heritage Volunteers (WHV) Initiative?
The WHV Initiative was launched in 2008 to encourage young people to undertake concrete actions and to play an active role in the protection, preservation and promotion of World Heritage sites. It consists ...
1 min read
Monday, 29 April 2019
Today at UNESCO HQ in Paris, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) opened its Seventh session. During the session the members of the Liaison Group of Biodiversity-related Conventions (including the eight Biodiversity-related Conventions, the CBD, the World Heritage Convention, CITES, CMS, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, IPPC, the ...
4 min read
Monday, 22 April 2019
International Earth Day is celebrated every year on 22 April to remind us that the Earth and its ecosystems provide us with sustenance, and that we have a collective responsibility to achieve balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations.
This year’s Earth Day highlights the importance of protecting species. World Heritage sites are home to the ...
2 min read
Thursday, 18 April 2019
As we celebrate International Day for Monuments and Sites 2019, with the theme of Rural landscapes, we highlight the value of conserving this heritage formed through long-term, harmonious interaction between humankind and the natural environment. Protecting these landscapes is key for sustainable development.
Rural landscapes are biocultural mosaics—using land sustainably for production ...
2 min read
Tuesday, 16 April 2019
“Our hearts are broken”Audrey Azoulay
“We are filled with emotion and our hearts are broken,” said UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay as she witnessed the devastating fire tear through the historic cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris this evening. The cathedral is part of the 1991 World Heritage inscription, Paris, Banks of the Seine, which also includes bridges, quays and the banks of the ...
2 min read
Thursday, 11 April 2019
WHITRAP announces the online publication of the Proceedings of the Expert Meeting “The Implementation of UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape Recommendation” held in Shanghai, China, from 26th to 28th March 2018.
Urban living is increasingly becoming the most common mode of habitation. Urban areas are coping with the pressure resulting from increasing population, uncontrolled development, ...
2 min read
Wednesday, 10 April 2019
On 26 and 27 March 2019, World Heritage Site Managers of the Arab States region came together in Cairo, Egypt for a workshop in the framework of the Third Cycle of Periodic Reporting which currently being implemented in the region. The World Heritage Centre, in close cooperation with the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage (ARC-WH) and the UNESCO Office in Cairo, organized the ...
1 min read
Tuesday, 9 April 2019
Launched in September 2018, UNESCO’s World Heritage Journeys website (VisitEUWorldHeritage.com), produced in collaboration with National Geographic, is a finalist for a Webby Award—the Internet’s most coveted award.
As a Webby Nominee, VisitEUWorldHeritage.com has been chosen by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences as one of the five best in the world in the category of ...
1 min read
Tuesday, 9 April 2019
World Heritage Youth Fora are among the flagship activities of the World Heritage Education Programme, serving as a platform for bringing young professionals and heritage experts together to foster intercultural learning and exchange, to debate about common concerns and to discover new roles for themselves in heritage conservation.
In this context, and as an integral part of the 43rd session ...
1 min read
Thursday, 4 April 2019
The World Heritage Centre is determined to support Solomon Islands and Australia in exploring all options to hold the responsible company, owners and insurers to account. The Director of the World Heritage Centre wrote a letter to both the shipping and charter firm South Express Ltd, the owner of the MV Solomon Trader, and the insurance firm Korea Protection and Indemnity Club (Korea P&I ...
4 min read
Friday, 22 March 2019
In response to the fires in Mount Kenya National Park in early March, the Kenyan authorities - Mount Kenya Trust - submitted a grant application to the Rapid Response Facility (RRF) and obtained the maximum amount of US$30,000. This support will make it possible to finance hours of helicopter flights to monitor the Park's risk areas and intervene with water bombers in the event of new fire ...
2 min read
Tuesday, 19 March 2019
UNESCO Sub-regional Conference on World Heritage Global Strategy in the context of South Asia met in Kolkata (21-22 February 2019) released the Kolkata Recommendation as a strategy for future implementation of the World Heritage Global Strategy in the Sub-region.
The Sub-regional Conference, attended by approximately 55 governmental officials, experts from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, ...
1 min read
Tuesday, 19 March 2019
World Heritage is the official publication from the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, dedicated to presenting detailed feature articles about the most outstanding cultural and natural sites around the world. World Heritage is a quarterly magazine published since 1996 in English, French and Spanish. Explore recent issues or subscribe today.
We would be very grateful if you would spend a few ...
1 min read
Monday, 11 March 2019
On 26 and 27 February 2019, World Heritage Focal Points of the Arab States region came together at UNESCO Headquarters (Paris, France) for a workshop in the framework of the Third Cycle of Periodic Reporting exercise which is currently being implemented in the region.
The workshop, hosted by the World Heritage Centre in close cooperation with the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage ...
2 min read
Friday, 8 March 2019
This Women’s Day we celebrate our female World Heritage site managers: heroines protecting our most outstanding places.
Women play a crucial role in conservation - they are the rangers protecting Virunga National Park (Democratic Republic of the Congo), the first site in the region to have female rangers. They safeguard marine World Heritage sites such as Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park ...
1 min read
Friday, 8 March 2019
Together for heritage!
The European Young Heritage Professionals Forum will take place from 20 to 24 May 2019 in Zadar, Croatia to explore potential synergies and challenges of working on tangible and intangible cultural heritage in the European context.
The Forum will enable participants to enhance project management and communication skills by working on their own heritage projects with ...
1 min read
Wednesday, 6 March 2019
A new IUCN SOS – Save Our Species Call for Proposals is now open.
Financed in partnership with the European Commission’s DG DEVCO, this call is focused on African Wildlife. It prioritises five species of carnivores, namely lions, leopards, cheetahs, African wild dogs and Ethiopian wolves. A limited proportion of the funding will be earmarked for additional threatened species. These include ...
1 min read
Tuesday, 5 March 2019
For more than a week, devastating fires have raged in Mount Kenya National Park, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1997 and a part of the Mount Kenya Biosphere Reserve since 1978.
According to the Kenya National Parks Service (KWS), these fires have already destroyed more than 80,000 hectares of forest and grassland, which represents almost half the area of the World Heritage site. ...
1 min read
Monday, 4 March 2019
An oil spill has occurred near East Rennell, the only natural World Heritage site in the Pacific that is on the Danger List. Experts from Australia are currently working with the national authorities to ascertain the status of the situation and advice on possible mitigation measures to be taken.
On 4 February 2019, the bulk carrier MV Solomon Trader ran aground in Kangava Bay, Rennell ...
3 min read
Friday, 1 March 2019
The theme of this year’s World Wildlife Day aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 14: life below water. It is also the first World Wildlife Day highlighting marine biodiversity.
World Heritage marine sites are home to the world’s most exceptional species on earth such as the Bengal tiger, marine iguanas, and the Coelacanth, the world’s oldest fish.Despite this rich wildlife, our sites ...
2 min read
Tuesday, 26 February 2019
On behalf of the World Heritage Centre, Director Ms Mechtild Rössler expresses her solidarity with the efforts currently being undertaken by national authorities in Colombia to curb increasing security challenges in the country’s national parks, some of which are classified as natural World Heritage properties.
In the light of these increasing and dramatic pressures, Parques Nacionales ...
1 min read
Monday, 25 February 2019
The first regional meeting on "Transboundary Cooperation for effective management of World Heritage Sites in Africa" was held from 11 to 15 February 2019 in the city of Man (Côte d'Ivoire), located at 100 km from the Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve, the first African transboundary property inscribed on the World Heritage List.
Funded by the Netherlands Funds-in-Trust, the main objective of ...
2 min read
Wednesday, 20 February 2019
An oil spill has reportedly occurred in East Rennell, Solomon Islands on Tuesday, 19 February when a bulk carrier ran aground at Kangava Bay, just outside of the World Heritage property.
East Rennell was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1998 and is the largest raised coral atoll in the world. The site includes Lake Tegano, a brackish lake containing many rugged limestone islets which ...
1 min read
Tuesday, 19 February 2019
Launched in July 2017 with financial support from the Netherlands Funds-in-Trust, the “Communities and reinforcement of the management of the Royal Palaces of Abomey World Heritage Site” project, has been successfully concluded with a three-day cultural celebration event, from 27 to 29 December 2018.
These ‘Cultural Days’ which responded to the theme “Let’s open our Palaces!”, were organized ...
1 min read
Tuesday, 19 February 2019
In 2012, Rio de Janeiro, a Carioca landscape between the mountains and the sea, became the first urban cultural landscape ever inscribed on the World Heritage List.
To its beaches, carnival, football and World Heritage, also represented by the archaeological site of the Valongo pier (inscribed in 2017), the Brazilian metropolis now adds yet another attraction: architecture. Following an ...
1 min read
Friday, 15 February 2019
On 1 October 1919 in Weimar (Germany), a new kind of art school founded by architect Walter Gropius welcomed its first students, and Bauhaus was born. In 2019, we are celebrating the centenary of this school founded after the First World War.
A festival, two museums, exhibitions and even a television series dedicated to Walter Gropius will mark the anniversary of this Movement that ...
1 min read
Friday, 8 February 2019
UNESCO New Delhi and the Ministry of Tourism, West Bengal Government (India), in support of the Archaeological Survey of India, are organizing a sub-regional conference World Heritage Global Strategy in the context of South Asia on 21 and 22 February 2019 in Kolkata.
The Global Strategy, launched in 1994 by the World Heritage Committee, has the aim to ensure that the List reflects the ...
1 min read
Friday, 8 February 2019
After heavy rains hit northeastern Togo in August 2018, UNESCO led an emergency mission to the World Heritage Property of Koutammakou, to assess the scale of the damage including to some of the world’s rarest architectural structures – the two-storey mud “tower” houses known as Takienta.
The mission, which comprised three international and four national experts, visited the villages of ...
2 min read
Friday, 1 February 2019
This year’s World Wetlands Day under the theme of “Wetlands and Climate Change” highlights the importance of healthy and intact wetlands to one of the most pressing challenges of our times: climate change.
Celebrated annually on 2 February, the day the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands was adopted in 1971, World Wetlands Day is a success story of the international community ensuring efficient ...
2 min read
Thursday, 31 January 2019
Throughout 2018, the World Heritage Marine Programme led transformational changes at specific sites, furthered research on climate change impacts and advanced the fight against marine pollution.
Download the Report
The highlight of 2018 was undoubtedly the removal of the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System from the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger. Lauded in the New York Times as “A ...
2 min read
Tuesday, 29 January 2019
Following the Fifth Meeting of the Coordinating Committee on Serial Transnational World Heritage Nomination of the Silk Roads, 4–5 December 2018, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, the participants including national focal points and experts from thirteen countries, adopted a list of decisions for further activities to preserve and manage the Cultural Heritage sites along the Silk Roads.
The 5th ...
2 min read
Monday, 28 January 2019
The staff of the World Heritage Centre would like to express its sadness after learning that Dr. Bradnee Chambers, Executive Secretary of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), passed away on 23 January 2019 after a short illness.
This is a tragic loss for CMS, all biodiversity related Conventions and the United Nations. Bradnee became Executive ...
1 min read
Monday, 21 January 2019
Following the decision adopted by the World Heritage Committee at its 42nd session (Manama, 2018), a high-level World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring mission, led by the Deputy Director of the World Heritage Centre, is being dispatched to the World Heritage property "Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz" (Uzbekistan) on 21-26 January 2019, at the invitation of the Uzbek government.
The ...
2 min read
Monday, 21 January 2019
A pioneering insurance industry guide to protect our planet’s most special places through its risk management, insurance and investment activities will be created in 2019 with leading insurers.
This follows the 2018 launch of the world’s first insurance industry statement of commitment to protect World Heritage Sites developed by UN Environment’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance ...
4 min read
Friday, 18 January 2019
From 9 to 11 January 2019, ICCROM organized an experts meeting at the Egyptian Academy of Arts in Rome to reflect on its new initiative entitled “Africa Programme 2020-2029: Changing the Face of Heritage and Conservation in Africa”. The 15 experts representing cultural and heritage institutions on the African continent, ICCROM and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, shared their specific ...
1 min read
Tuesday, 8 January 2019
The Earth Skills Network (ESN) is a unique collaboration between Earthwatch, UNESCO, IUCN and the business community. It connects leaders from the business and conservation community through mentoring and skill-sharing opportunities.
The Earth Skills Network provides funded training in:
business planning and effective management practices and,
personal development of leadership ...
1 min read
Friday, 4 January 2019
Dear friends,
As 2019 begins, I’d like thank everyone who has made efforts to protect World Heritage sites, whether by taking action at a property, making a donation for site preservation, or just by being a thoughtful tourist.
2018 was a challenging year with many threats to World Heritage globally. In addition to specific threats ranging from logging to overfishing, from ill-advised ...
2 min read
Friday, 21 December 2018
Marking the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018, UNESCO and the European Union teamed up to develop a new project to start in 2019 that strengthens the connections between cultural heritage, youth and education. The project has two main components: one seeks to empower a new generation of heritage professionals and another aims to bring intangible cultural heritage into the ...
1 min read
