News

From 30 June to 4 July 2010, the International Academy for Nature Conservation, Isle of Vilm, Germany, hosted an expert workshop that set the basis for scaling-up Marine World Heritage. The workshop was jointly organized by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the IUCN-World Commission on Protected Areas and ...

The World Heritage Committee will consider requests for the inscription of new sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List when it meets for its 34th session in Brasilia (Brazil), from 25 July to 3 August. During this year’s session - to be chaired by João Luiz Ferreira, the Brazilian Minister of Culture and President of the World Heritage Committee - 35 States Parties to the ...

Comoé National Park in Côte d'Ivoire lies in a region particularly affected by the Ivorian civil war, which lasted for five years until 2007. A World Heritage site since 1983, it was added to the In Danger list in 2003. During the conflict, park management authorities in Comoé were effectively forced to abandon their operations, so there were few, if any, deterrents to ...

UNESCO today received a petition of signed by 125,000 people around the world protesting against the re-opening of a paper and pulp mill on the shores of Lake Baikal, a World Heritage site in the Russian Federation. The petition was presented to UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture, Francesco Bandarin, by Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), who agreed to bring it to ...

The World Heritage Centre has recently published a new booklet entitled "World Heritage in the Congo Basin". This publication is intended for both biodiversity specialists and the general public. It provides detailed information on two important initiatives undertaken by the World Heritage Centre for the preservation of natural heritage in Central Africa. The first initiative, ...

A new website launched by Wetlands International, BirdLife International and the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) reveals major gaps in the protection of many critical sites used by migratory waterbirds across Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia.  The new 'Critical Site Network (CSN)' Tool (www.wingsoverwetlands.org/csntool) provides comprehensive ...

Aranjuez, the only Spanish site declared a Cultural Landscape in UNESCO´s World Heritage List, is hosting the 2nd World Heritage Ibero-American Youth Forum from 20 to June 30, 2010. The event comes in the wake of the 1st Ibero-American Youth Forum on World Heritage, held in Seville in June 2009, during the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee. This event gathers together young ...

World Heritage site managers of 22 States Parties have been meeting in Yaoundé, Cameroon, since 21 June, 2010, to advance in the preparation of periodic reports in French and Portuguese-speaking African countries.The three-day sub-regional meeting, organized by the World Heritage Centre and the UNESCO Office in Yaoundé, was inaugurated on Monday 21 June 2010 by the Minister of ...

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre has launched an international storyboard competition for the creation of the next episode of the animated series Patrimonito's World Heritage Adventures. The competition invites young people to express their ideas in the form of a storyboard for the Patrimonito's World Heritage Adventures animated series. In the coming days, 187 National Commissions - every ...

The African World Heritage Fund (AWHF) strives towards the effective conservation and protection of Africa's natural and cultural heritage. AWHF is for all African Member states who have signed the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention in support of these goals. The AWHF is the first regional funding initiative within the framework of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. The AWHF was ...

Since the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee (Seville, 2009), the World Heritage Centre and IUCN have received a large number of letters from individuals who are concerned about the state of conservation of the the World Heritage property Lake Baikal (Russian Federation), and in particular about the re-opening of the Baikalsk Paper and Pulp Mill (BPPM) and its likely impacts on the ...

The World Heritage Centre of UNESCO has welcomed the support given by the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, to the World Heritage Committee's decision regarding "The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and the Related Group of Monuments" which requested that work on the construction of the Okhta Centre Tower be suspended and that new designs reducing the building's ...

Severe torrential rain has resulted in flooding and mudslides across much of Guatemala, causing some communities to be entirely cut off and requiring the evacuation of thousands of people. Tropical Storm Agatha, the first named storm of the Pacific hurricane season, made landfall on 29 May 2010 in Guatemala and left a trail of destruction across much of Central America. The World Heritage ...

The news of massive flooding across Eastern Europe, and the threat that this poses to World Heritage sites in Poland has caused great concern to the World Heritage community. We deeply deplore the loss of lives in this natural disaster. The floods are the worst to occur in Poland since 1997, when 55 people died and nearly 50,000 homes were flooded. In 2002, a number of World Heritage sites ...

The new Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development (JCHMSD), is currently considering papers for inclusion in its first issue launching in 2011. The double-blind peer reviewed journal is edited by Ana Pereira Roders, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, and Ron van Oers, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, France. It stimulates and encourages research ...

During the Fifth Global Conference on Oceans, Coasts, and Islands held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France from 3-7 May,  Mr. Yves Meylan, Director France of the Swiss luxury watch manufacturer Jaeger-LeCoultre gave a keynote address on private sector engagement for marine conservation. Mr. Meylan presented the innovative Tides of Time partnership among Jaeger-LeCoultre, the ...

[in French only] Actualités sur l'avancement des projets cfu : * Le projet « Niger - Loire : gouvernance et culture » * Villages antiques du nord de la Syrie. Mission du 9 au 14 avril 2010 * Projet européen « patrimoine culturel et développement local : renforcement des capacités des collectivités locales d'Afrique ...

An inspection team has found the damage resulting from the 3 April grounding of a bulk carrier on the Great Barrier Reef (Australia), a World Heritage site. Initial inspections indicate the impact site covers approximately 2.5 km, and reef scarring and potentially toxic paint residue have been found. The coral and sea bed structure was completely crushed in some areas and approximately ...

After last year's groundbreaking Tides of Time campaign, luxury watch manufacturer Jaeger-LeCoultre organized a second auction on March 18, 2010. This time, one of two vintage 1958 Geophysic Chronometer Models E168, tested by professional climber Stephane Schaffter and his team during their recent Geophysic Expedition in the Himalayas, was up for auction. A week after the opening, the final ...

The conservation and preservation of cultural heritage is an interdisciplinary field requiring close cooperation between conservator-restorers, archaeologists, art historians, collection managers and museum curators on the one hand, and conservation scientists on the other. In order to promote the synergy between the cultural heritage field, and the natural sciences and engineering, the ...