28. The Committee examined document SC-88/CONF.001/10 which arose from the difficulty which the Bureau had encountered in the examination of nominations which had an indissociable combination of cultural and natural elements.
29. The Committee recalled the inconsistency between the definitions of cultural and natural heritage in the Convention and the criteria laid out in the Operational Guidelines, particularly the fact that Article 2 defining natural heritage did not refer to cultural aspects of such heritage and yet natural criterion (iii) refers to "... areas natural beauty or exceptional combinations of natural and cultural elements".
30. In order to simplify the work of the Committee and its Bureau, the Committee agreed to the procedure whereby the evaluation of nominations with a combination of natural and cultural elements would be made by ICOMOS, which would take account of the cultural criteria (paragraph 24 of the Operational Guidelines) and, in consultation with IUCN, also of natural criterion (iii) relating to natural beauty and the exceptional combination of cultural and natural elements (paragraph 36(a)(iii)).
31. In the same manner, the Committee encouraged States Parties to present the justification for such properties evoking both cultural criteria and natural criterion (iii).
32. The Committee recognized that this procedure constituted only an interim practical measure and did not resolve the issue of all "mixed sites" which were neither specifically foreseen nor excluded in the Convention itself.