News

Burkina Faso joined the rank of countries that have World Heritage properties on their territory with the inscription of the Ruins of Loropéni on UNESCO’s List on Friday. The 11,130m2 property, the first to be inscribed in the country, with its imposing stone walls is the best preserved of ten fortresses in the Lobi area and is part of a larger group of 100 stone enclosures that ...

The World Heritage Committee, chaired by María Jesús San Segundo, the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Spain to UNESCO, has inscribed China's Mount Wutai on UNESCO's World Heritage List as a cultural landscape. With its five flat peaks, Mount Wutai is a sacred Buddhist mountain. The cultural landscape numbers 53 monasteries and includes the East Main Hall of Foguang Temple, ...

The World Heritage Committee, chaired by María Jesús San Segundo, the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Spain to UNESCO, has inscribed the Wadden Sea on the World Heritage List as a transboundary property for Germany and the Netherlands. The Committee also inscribed Italy's Dolomites mountains and the Philippines' Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park as an extension to the Tubbataha ...

The Tides of Time programme, initiated in 2008 through a partnership with Jaeger-LeCoultre and the International Herald Tribune, has entered its second year. The year began with coverage of sites such as Sian Kaan in Mexico and the Everglades in the USA. Other sites including the Atoll of Aldabra (Seychelles), Sundarbans (Bangladesh/India), Shiretoko (Japan), and the Peninsula Valdez ...

Cidade Velha has been inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List, marking Cape Verde's entry to the international community's inventory of properties of outstanding universal value. The World Heritage Committee, chaired by María Jesús San Segundo, Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Spain to UNESCO, inscribed the historic centre, which dates back to the late 15th century and ...

On 13 March 2009 in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the latest maps of World Heritage sites produced by the Belgian universities of Louvain (UCL) and Gand (UGent), with the financial support of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) were officially presented to the Congo Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN). The General Director for the ICCN, Mr Cosma ...

The Weimar Jena Akademie in partnership with the Bauhaus Universität Weimar and co-financed by the European Union, is organizing its 10th edition of the Weimar Summer Courses. The Weimar Summer Courses will offer around 80 participants from different countries a two week program of diverse activities in small work groups which will include seminars, lectures, workshops and discussion ...

The World Heritage Committee has welcomed the success of the authorities of Azerbaijan in preserving the Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshahs' Palace and Maiden Tower (Azerbaijan), and decided to remove the property from UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger. The site, which sustained damage during the earthquake of November 2000, was inscribed on the Danger List in 2003. The site ...

"Every time we fail to preserve a site, we share the pain of the State Party," declared María Jesús San Segundo, the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Spain to UNESCO who is chairing the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee presently underway in Seville on Thursday. The World Heritage Committee decided to remove Germany's Dresden Elbe Valley from UNESCO's World Heritage List due ...

The 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee, chaired by María Jesús San Segundo, the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Spain to UNESCO, opened today in Seville, Spain. During the session, which ends on June 30, the Committee´s 21 members will review the state of conservation of properties inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List and 27 nominations for new ...

José Maria and José, founders of the ICE CARE project, left UNESCO Headquaters in Paris this morning following a meeting with Mr Kishore Rao, Deputy Director of the World Heritage Centre, to begin their 4 year project at five of the World Heritage Glaciers. The purpose of the expeditions will be to raise awareness about the threats to these melting ice caps. It is upon reading ...

Spain, host of the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee, is organizing the first Ibero-American World Heritage Youth Forum. Participants will be young people between 12 and 15 years old who attend in their country of origin a secondary school affiliated with the UNESCO ASPnet Schools Network, and who are acquainted with the World Heritage in Young Hands programme. During the week-long ...

On 12 June 2009, the Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Francesco Bandarin and the Director-General of the Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA),  Halit Eren signed a cooperation agreement in Istanbul, Turkey, within the framework of the UNESCO-IRCICA Mou signed in 2005 by the Heads of the two Organizations. The World Heritage Centre and IRCICA have ...

The Honorable Jim Prentice, Canada's Canada's Environment Minister and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, has introduced a bill which resulted in an important expansion of the Nahanni National Park Reserve of Canada. This followed a commitment made in 2009 by the Government of Canada. Through this proposed law, the Nahanni area is six times larger, making this 3000-km² park the third ...

On 21 and 22 May 2009, the Director-General of UNESCO, Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, visited four World Heritage Sites in northern Portugal. He was accompanied throughout his trip by the President of the Portuguese National Commission to UNESCO, Ambassador Fernando Andresen Guimarães. The Director-General's first visit was to the Prehistoric Rock-Art Sites in the Côa Valley , ...

On 28 May, after a visit to UNESCO's Director-General, UNESCO Artist for Peace Missa Johnouchi met with Mr Francesco Bandarin, Director of the World Heritage Centre. Ms Johnouchi was in Paris to record three new songs with the French National Orchestra for her next album. The album will be released in Japan in autumn 2009 and is conceived by Ms Johnouchi, with the support of UNESCO, as a ...

UNESCO's Director-General, Koïchiro Matsuura, and the President of the Republic of Chile, Michelle Bachelet Jeria, presented today in Paris a joint training project for development and sustainable ecotourism, aimed at local communities in the Rapa Nui National Park, a site inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1995. To launch the project, financed by the Government of Japan, a ...

The World Heritage Committee will consider requests for the inscription of new sites on UNESCO's World Heritage List when it meets for its 33rd session in Seville, Spain, from 22 to 30 June. During this year's session - to be chaired by María Jesús San Segundo, the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Spain to UNESCO - 35 States Parties to the World Heritage Convention will ...

The World Heritage Centre wishes to pay tribute to Michel Parent, a leading personality of world cultural heritage, who passed away last week at the age of ninety-three. Born in 1916 in Neuilly sur Seine, France, Michel Parent was a highly active and creative man. During his impressive career, he successively became Inspector (1945) and Inspector General (1958) of Sites, Inspector General ...

The first World Heritage sites to participate in the Earthwatch "Business Skills for World Heritage" programme were selected today. A total of 9 site managers from Ujung Kulon National Park (Indonesia), Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park (Philippines) and Kinabalu Park (Malaysia) will join two Earthwatch training professionals and three Shell company business planning experts on ...