The World Heritage Centre has just been informed that a Ministerial Order, signed on 1 September 2011, delivers to SOCO (South Africa Congo Oil) a Certificate of Environmental Acceptability in order to exercise an oil exploration campaign by the acquisition of aeromagnetic and aerogravimetric data in block V of the Albertine Rift (Virunga National Park), Democratic Republic of Congo ...

Dr. Sami El-Masri, Deputy Director General for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, with the Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Mr Kishore Rao, opened today the International Expert Meeting on Integrity for Cultural Heritage. The meeting is held from 12 to 14 March 2012, in Al Ain and is hosted by the United Arab Emirates in collaboration with the ...

Aztec Ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1987 as part of the Chaco Culture designation,  celebrated  the 25th anniversary of its inscription on February 24 2012, joining the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention.  More information about the event, organized in collaboration with the National Parks Service (NPS), can be found in the ...

On 6 March 2012, Liverpool City Council’s Planning Committee granted outline planning permission for the Peel Holdings £5.5bn Liverpool Waters scheme. The permission is subject to the signing of a legal agreement and has to be referred to the Government which will decide whether a public inquiry will be held. Experts from UNESCO's World Heritage Centre and from the International ...

On 12 August 2011, the Government of Brunei Darassalam and on 8 December 2011, the Government of Palestine officially deposited with the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, their instruments of ratification, becoming the 188th and 189th State Parties to adopt the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Convention entered into ...

Women in Mali have developed over the last decades specific skills in terms of textile dyeing. This activity provides many employment opportunities for women, as their production is being exported all throughout the sub-region. However, since chemical dyeing products are being used and polluted waste water released in water drainage canals or in the Niger River, this activity entails water ...

In March 2012, the Cultural Heritage Administration of the Republic of Korea (CHA) and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre (WHC)  launched the Patrimonito National Storyboard Competition, Republic of Korea. Of the 143 student submissions, 10 of the storyboards were selected by the Korean Cultural Heritage Administration and were then sent to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, ...

Thanks to Quindío being declared as part of the UNESCO World Heritage property, Coffee Cultural Landscape (Colombia), the exploration of hydrocarbons in this area has been stopped by order of the Council of State. The decree was issued less than eight days ago and demands the suspension of all exploration by the National Agency of Hydrocarbons and the Drilling 2010 consortium in the ...

Takuya Okada, Chairman of the AEON Environmental Foundation and Honorary Chairman of AEON Co., Ltd., announced today the opening of nominations for the MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity. The MIDORI Prize is a biennial international prize, established by the AEON Environmental Foundation, in 2010, during the International Year of Biodiversity, that honours individuals who have made outstanding ...

A joint international expert mission to the World Heritage property of Great Barrier Reef by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre (WHC), and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is taking place from 5 to 14 March 2012. The World Heritage Committee, at its 35th session in June 2011 (Paris) examined the state of conservation of Great Barrier Reef (Australia), inscribed on the ...

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, two young Indian men, Aniketh MJ and Sulesh Kumar, are planning to visit India’s 28 World Heritage sites over a span of 3 months starting March 5th, 2012, travelling mainly by bus and train. With this trip they would like to create a bond between the current generation of Indians and the wonderful ...

UNESCO and Collins are delighted to announce the publication of The World’s Heritage (2nd Edition) – the definitive, best-selling guide to all 936 UNESCO World Heritage sites. This is the first book to describe all the sites on the List fully, including the most recent additions to the List in 2011. Only the world's most spectacular and extraordinary sites make it onto UNESCO's ...

To mark the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the UNESCOWorld Heritage Convention, Dentsu, EVERGREEN Digital Contents and NTT DOCOMO, in collaboration with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, have launched a special cartoon film featuring the friendship between “Patrimonito”, the mascot of the World Heritage Education programme, and “Docomodake”, the mascot of NTT ...

Expert Working Group meeting held in Tokyo, releases recommendations for Safeguarding World Heritage property of the Bamiyan Valley, Afghanistan Following their meeting in UNESCO Headquarters in March 2011, a group of Afghan and international experts working on the safeguarding of Bamiyan (Afghanistan), as well as representatives of the Afghan and Japanese governments and UNESCO,  have ...

It is rare for a Director-General to present a certificate of World Heritage in person, but the temples, gardens and archaeological site of Hiraizumi, inscribed on the List in 2011, marked an exception. Located in north-east Japan, the 12th-century site, representing the Buddhist Pure Land gained its world heritage status three months after the earthquake and tsunami devastated the ...

Panasonic Corporation held yesterday, 8 February, the award ceremony of "Eco Picture Diary Global Contest" which the company has been promoting with the aim to raise awareness of environmental issues and eco actions for the young generation, with the final nomination of national finalists attending the ceremony at UNESCO headquarters. The "Eco-Picture Diary Contest" is a program developed ...

The Retezat Massif has received a Rapid Response Facility (RRF) grant to undertake urgent snow-tracking surveys in response to a road-building threat through the Carpathian Mountains. This protected area is on Romania’s World Heritage tentative list, and is known for its plant diversity, endemism and rich fauna, including the Eurasian eagle-owl, the gray wolf and the brown bear. The ...

The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, launched the 40th anniversary celebration of the World Heritage Convention in a ceremony at UNESCO Headquarters on 30 January. It was the first of a series of events States Parties to the 1972 Convention are organizing around the world over the coming year, and ending with a final event in November 2012 in Kyoto, Japan. The launch featured a ...

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, one of UNESCO's most successful programmes and one of the most powerful tools for heritage preservation. Almost universally adopted, with 188 signatory countries, the Convention is unique in that it combines the protection of cultural and natural heritage in one instrument. Since its adoption by the General Conference of ...

On November 16, 1972, the international community took a historic step towards safeguarding core, irreplaceable elements of our global heritage when the General Conference of UNESCO adopted the World Heritage Convention. Since then, more than 188 countries have ratified the Convention, and more than 936 separate sites around the world have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. As ...