International Women's Day 2019: Paying tribute to female site managers

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 (Philippines) fighting against illegal fishing, and Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System (Belize), removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger last year. The religious communities of Flemish Béguinages in northern Europe still exist as communities 'self-managed by independent women’. 

Despite the remarkable contribution women have played in protecting our legacy of the past, present and future, not everyone knows about the conservation work that women are doing. Only 17% of profiles on Wikipedia are of women, and UNESCO and Wikipedia Foundation are helping to bridge the digital gap. With the #Wiki4Women initiative, UNESCO is calling on everyone to take a few minutes to create, enrich or translate a Wikipedia portrait of women. Please join and include those committed to the conservation of cultural or natural heritage. For the initiative, sign up here.

Learn more about UNESCO's celebrations:
https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/womenday

UNESCO's Wiki4Women event:

https://en.unesco.org/events/wiki4women

Read the issue of World Heritage magazine dedicated to gender equality:
https://whc.unesco.org/en/review/78/