Decision 44 COM 7B.103

Plitvice Lakes National Park (Croatia) (N 98bis)

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Document WHC/21/44.COM/7B,
2. Recalling Decision 42 COM 7B.74, adopted at its 42nd session (Manama, 2018),
3. Welcomes the on-going efforts of the State Party to implement decisions of the Committee and the recommendations of the 2017 joint World Heritage Centre/IUCN Reactive Monitoring mission, and requests the State Party to continue these efforts, including specifically the timely completion of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) as part of the process of amending the Spatial Plan for the property;
4. Also welcomes the progress made by the State Party to address the issue of wastewater management and water supply, but notes that the investment projects to bring a long-term solution for the water pollution and unsustainable water use problems still remain at the planning phase and therefore, urges the State Party to accelerate the implementation of these projects and to include in future reporting to the Committee the results of the on-going monitoring of water quality and use;
5. Also recalling that the inadequate water supply and drainage system, water pollution risks and continued exponential growth of visitation at the property represented a potential danger to the property’s Outstanding Universal Value (OUV), in line with Paragraph 180 of the Operational Guidelines, considers that, until it can be confirmed that the solutions developed by the State Party have been effective in addressing these threats, the OUV of the property remains vulnerable;
6. Takes note of the establishment of a new visitor management system but reiterates that visitor management in the property should be based primarily on minimizing threats to the property’s OUV, including directly linking the carrying capacity to the associated attributes, and also requests the State Party to carefully monitor visitation and associated impacts and to introduce further mitigation measures, including caps on visitor numbers where required;
7. Further requests the State Party to pursue the planned by-pass to relocate the state road outside the property;
8. Finally requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 December 2022 an updated report on the state of conservation of the property and the implementation of the above, including detailed information confirming the evolution of visitor numbers and associated impacts, as well as an assessment of the effectiveness of the newly introduced visitor management system in addressing the exponential visitation growth and confirming the completion of the wastewater treatment project.