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Friday, 25 November 2016
Among the numerous events organized as part of “Aqua Granda 1966-2016”, UNESCO is directly contributing to the exhibition “From the emergency to the restoration of cultural heritage: Stories and images from the archives of the city” at the Marciana National Library in Venice, Italy. The exhibition will run until 27 November 2016. The Aqua Granda 1966-2016 exhibition at the Marciana National ...
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Friday, 25 November 2016
Following the confirmation by Iraqi authorities of the liberation of the archaeological site of Nimrud, the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, has reiterated her support to the people of Iraq and the need to unite for the protection of heritage in the country. ‘This liberation is highly significant for the Iraqi people and the international community. We are now at the beginning of a ...
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Thursday, 24 November 2016
The 5th Annual Coordination Meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage related category 2 Institutes and Centres took place in Dehradun, India on 22 November 2016. The UNESCO Category 2 Centre (C2C) on Natural World Heritage Management and Training for Asia and the Pacific Region (NWHMT) at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) hosted the meeting on its campus. Four coordination meetings have ...
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Thursday, 24 November 2016
Unite4Heritage is proud to present the video "The Value of Heritage" that raises awareness about the importance of safeguarding heritage for future generations. This video was produced by the UNESCO Beirut Office in the framework of the Emergency Safeguarding of the Syrian Cultural Heritage project, funded by the European Union and supported by the Flemish Government and the Government of ...
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Thursday, 24 November 2016
A recent fire that devastated a neighbourhood of the Ancient City of Damascus raised the alarm about the need to protect the old city, inscribed on the World Heritage list, from future catastrophes and sparked discussions about post-conflict action in Syria. In April, a fire erupted in al-Asrooniya area, a commercial neighbourhood located between the Citadel of Damascus and the Great Mosque ...
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Thursday, 24 November 2016
Within the framework of the Heritage Education Program, the Directorate of Heritage and Cultural Diplomacy (Ministry of Education and Culture, Directorate General of Culture) conducted the World Heritage Camp Indonesia (WHCI) 2016 from 8 to 14 November. The seven-day forum was held across three World Heritage Sites in Indonesia – Sangiran Early Man Site, Prambanan Temple Compounds, and ...
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Tuesday, 22 November 2016
The 22nd Conference of the Parties (COP22) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held from 7 to 18 November 2016, began a mere three days after the Paris Agreement, adopted at the 21st Conference in 2015, came into force. Leaders from around the world met in Marrakech, Morocco to chart a course for collective action on climate change. The conference focused on ...
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Monday, 21 November 2016
Hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) of the Republic of Korea, the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) and the Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU), an international conference on World Heritage Interpretation was held in Seoul, Republic of Korea on 2 November 2016.  The conference was attended by more than 100 participants including 14 Ambassadors of Permanent ...
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Monday, 21 November 2016
Within the framework of the UNESCO World Heritage Education Programme, the World Heritage Volunteers (WHV) Initiative was launched in 2008 in collaboration with the Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service (CCIVS) to mobilise and involve young people and youth organizations in World Heritage preservation and promotion. Since then, over 3500 volunteers have ...
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Friday, 18 November 2016
The European Commission and the European Parliament in collaboration with UNESCO, organized a photo exhibition on 15 November 2016 to celebrate the UNESCO World Heritage sites in Europe inscribed in 2015 and 2016. The new World Heritage sites join the EU’s network of over 300 sites. The exhibition was an opportunity to showcase the EU’s commitment to supporting World Heritage in the lead up ...
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Thursday, 17 November 2016
In addition to Chile's World Heritage sites, the map includes 17 sites that the Chilean government has submitted to the Tentative List to be potentially named World Heritage in future. The map will soon be available for free. The map that UNESCO has launched to commemorate its 71st anniversary seeks to raise awareness of the diversity and location of Chile’s different types of heritage. The ...
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Thursday, 10 November 2016
The National Centre for the Fight Against Genocide (CNLG), the Ministry of Sports and Culture of Rwanda and UNESCO organized an international experts meeting on the World Heritage Convention and Memory Sites from 7 to 9 November 2016 with support from the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF). The three-day workshop included visits to Murambi and Nyamata memorial sites, which are two of the four ...
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Wednesday, 9 November 2016
An exciting addition to the network of Nordic World Heritage sites saw the light of day on 23 September 2016 with the founding of the Nordic World Heritage Association. The founding document was signed at the Thingvellir World Heritage Property (Iceland) and brought together representatives of the five Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Denmark, including Greenland, Iceland and ...
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Wednesday, 9 November 2016
The Trinidad and Tobago National Commission for UNESCO, in collaboration with the National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago and the Tourism Development Company organized in Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago) on 1st and 2nd November 2016, the Second Workshop on the World Heritage Convention. This international workshop was conceived with the support of the World Heritage Centre together with the ...
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Friday, 4 November 2016
World Heritage sites and their associated museums are working with both local communities and international heritage professionals not only to preserve, but to help people maintain and reinforce their relationship to their shared cultural and natural heritage.  Together they are facing threats and challenges like conflict, climate change and funding shortages. An International Conference on ...
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Friday, 4 November 2016
On 3 and 4 November, fifty years after the 1966 Venice flood and the International Safeguarding Campaign launched by UNESCO, the Director-General, Irina Bokova, undertook a visit to Venice, Italy. This visit was an opportunity to mark the longstanding cooperation with Italy and to express UNESCO’s support to its government and people after the country was struck by a series of powerful ...
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Thursday, 3 November 2016
On 24 and 26 October 2016, at the invitation of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, authorities of the Democratic Republic of Congo, represented by the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature - ICCN), met with Permanent Delegates from  Uganda, Central African Republic and South Sudan, at UNESCO Headquarters to discuss the state of ...
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Tuesday, 1 November 2016
The Director of the World Heritage Centre, Mechtild Rössler, has expressed her profound sympathy to the government and people of Italy after the devastating earthquake that struck the country Sunday last. “It was with great concern and sadness that I learnt of the devastating earthquake that struck Central Italy Sunday last, and I would like, at the outset, to express the World Heritage ...
Monday, 31 October 2016
On 28 October 2016 UNESCO World Heritage Centre and IUCN World Heritage Programme representatives met with H.E. the Ambassador and an expert delegation of senior officials from Bangladesh to chart a way forward in addressing core conservation challenges to the Sundarbans, the world's largest unbroken mangrove system. Earlier this month, the World Heritage Centre and IUCN released a report of ...
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Thursday, 27 October 2016
The World Heritage Committee continued its work from 24 to 26 October 2016 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, thus completing its 40th session which began in Istanbul, Turkey from 10 to 17 July 2016. The Committee finished its deliberations, including discussions concerning the budget and revision to the Operational Guidelines of the World Heritage Convention. The Committee also ...
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Wednesday, 26 October 2016
“Cultural heritage is significant in the present, both as a message from the past and as a pathway to the future. Viewed from a human rights perspective, it is important not only in itself, but also in relation to its human dimension,” Karima Bennoune says. As UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, she decided to address the intentional destruction of cultural heritage as an ...
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Wednesday, 19 October 2016
The Eastern Tropical Pacific region is a vast swath of open ocean, coasts and islands that stretches from the west coast of Mexico to the northern tip of Peru. Its rich waters support some of the world’s most productive fisheries, and are home to wildlife found nowhere else on the planet. The region’s spectacular scenery and wildlife have made it a global tourism destination, and seven ...
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Tuesday, 18 October 2016
Culture has the power to make cities more prosperous, safer, and sustainable, according to UNESCO’s Global Report, Culture: Urban Future to be launched in Quito (Ecuador) on 18 October. The Global Report presents evidence on how development policies in line with UNESCO’s conventions on the protection and promotion of culture and heritage can benefit cities. The Report will be released at an ...
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Tuesday, 18 October 2016
The Sundarbans in Bangladesh is part of the world’s largest mangrove forests, home to the famous Bengal Tiger and a hotspot for dolphins, turtles, and birds. Millions of people depend on this labyrinth of tidal rivers for food, homes, and flood protection.   The Sundarbans were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997, and will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year. In March ...
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Monday, 17 October 2016
Beth Maclang has spent the last three weeks at Mammoth Cave National Park learning about the operation of the park. Maclang is visiting MCNP as a World Heritage Fellow. She is the superintendent of the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park on the island of Patawan in the Philippines. “I’m just trying to observe,” she said. Like MCNP, Puerto Princesa is a national park with a ...
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Monday, 17 October 2016
National Focal Points for World Heritage in Europe are invited to complete the online form and provide information on steps taken so far toward the implementation of the Helsinki Action Plan for Europe. Each question corresponds directly to one of the 34 specific actions outlined in the Action Plan. National Focal Points are invited to provide quantitative information relating to each ...
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Monday, 17 October 2016
The World Heritage Centre has learned with great sadness of the recent passing of Larry Hamilton, a pioneer in nature conservation whose impact touched all the corners of the globe. Larry was an exceptional educator, advisor, and pioneer of courses in forest ecology, watershed studies, interdisciplinary collaboration, and international resource issues at Cornell University’s Department of ...
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Friday, 14 October 2016
“As I have stated on many occasions, and most recently during the 40th session of the World Heritage Committee, Jerusalem is the sacred city of the three monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is in recognition of this exceptional diversity, and this cultural and religious coexistence, that it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. “The heritage of ...
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Wednesday, 12 October 2016
Over the past nine years, the World Heritage Volunteers (WHV) Initiative has grown tremendously due to increasing interest and appreciation for World Heritage protection, preservation and promotion of World Heritage sites. Celebrating 10 years of the initiative, the World Heritage Centre is pleased to announce the Call for Projects for the World Heritage Volunteers (WHV) Campaign ...
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Friday, 7 October 2016
Professionals from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia are the beneficiaries of the sub-regional workshop on “Managing Disaster Risks in UNESCO Designated Sites” that will take place in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on 10-13 October 2016. The event is organised by the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe, Venice (Italy), in support of the World Heritage ...
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Friday, 30 September 2016
Since South Sudan’s ratification of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention in March 2016, UNESCO has been working closely with the Government of the Republic of South Sudan to support the development of the newest African country’s first Tentative List of potential World Heritage sites.  A ‘Tentative List’ is a detailed inventory of natural, cultural or mixed (both natural and cultural) ...
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Tuesday, 27 September 2016
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has recognized Ahmed Al-Faqi Al-Mahdi guilty of war crime and has sentenced him to 9 years in prison for his responsibility in the deliberate destruction in 2012 of nine mausoleums and the secret gate of the Sidi Yahia mosque in UNESCO’s World Heritage site of Timbuktu (Mali). “The decision of the International Criminal Court is a landmark in gaining ...
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Tuesday, 27 September 2016
With almost 1.2 billion people travelling abroad each year, tourism has become a powerful economic sector, a passport to prosperity, dialogue and peace, and a transformative force improving millions of lives. Tourism and World Heritage are natural partners. Almost all World Heritage sites are or become tourist destinations-some are among the most iconic places on Earth. The key objective of ...
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Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Destruction of cultural heritage has reached unprecedented levels. In light of this, and culture’s unique contribution to peace and sustainable development, the ratification, implementation and visibility of UNESCO’s six Culture Conventions are more important than ever. This was the focus of the Second Meeting of the Chairpersons of the Committees of UNESCO Culture Conventions at UNESCO ...
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Wednesday, 21 September 2016
On 19 September 2016 at the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine (Architectural and Heritage Centre), Paris, the representatives of seven States Parties, Argentina, Belgium, France, Germany, India, Japan and Switzerland were presented with the certificates of inscription on the List of World Heritage of the serial property “The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an Outstanding ...
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Tuesday, 20 September 2016
The sacred gate of the mosque of Sidi Yahia in Timbuktu, which bears testimony to cultural traditions dating back to the 15th century CE, was officially reinstalled on 19 September in a ceremony organized by the inhabitants of the World Heritage site. The gate, regarded as sacred, had been pulled out and damaged on 2 July 2012 by armed extremists who occupied the city. The restoration and ...
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Friday, 16 September 2016
A joint reactive monitoring mission by the World Heritage Centre and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) to assess the state of conservation of the World Heritage property “Wood Buffalo National Park” will take place from 25 September to 4 October 2016, at the invitation of Canada, and in keeping with the request made by the World Heritage Committee at its 39th session in ...
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Friday, 16 September 2016
In May/June 2016, the World Heritage Centre, in collaboration with its partners, organized a travelling exhibition displayed on the railings of UNESCO Headquarters in Paris and, subsequently, at the international conference in Arusha on the theme of African World Heritage Safeguarding as a Driver of Sustainable Development. For the 40th session of the World Heritage Committee held in ...
Tuesday, 13 September 2016
The more than 1,800 UNESCO designated sites around the world – World Heritage sites, biosphere reserves and UNESCO Global Geoparks – are impacted by climate change, and can play a significant role in understanding, adapting to and mitigating these impacts. These were the key messages from the opening day of the 2nd Huangshan Dialogue, a global forum on UNESCO-designated sites and sustainable ...
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Monday, 5 September 2016
It is with great sadness and concern that the World Heritage Centre learnt of the impact of the heavy rains and windstorms of 23 August 2016 that affected local communities, historic buildings and the villages of Albreda and Juffureh at Gambia's World Heritage site of Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites. The storms caused destruction of property, including the loss of part of the roof of ...
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Monday, 5 September 2016
The Nature-Culture Journey of the 2016 IUCN World Conservation Congress concluded with a call for commitments, “Malama Honua - to care for our island Earth”. It recognizes the nature-culture links as vital for addressing contemporary conservation challenges. The 2016 IUCN World Conservation Congress, which took place in Honolulu, Hawai’i from 1 to 10 September 2016, was attended by some ...
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