News

International Day for Biological Diversity 2022 is being celebrated under the theme: Building a shared future for all life. This slogan is very fitting as the 1972 World Heritage Convention celebrates its 50th anniversary and we reflect on the next 50 years of the Convention and its shared future for all life. It follows the 50th anniversary of UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme ...

African World Heritage Day is celebrated annually on the 5th of May to remember and acknowledge the importance of promoting and safeguarding the UNESCO World Heritage in Africa for the benefit of present and future generations. To celebrate the 7th edition of African World Heritage Day, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre (WHC), in collaboration with the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF), ...

Paris, 17 May 2022 – The Principality of Monaco and UNESCO signed today a new 3-year partnership to strengthen the scientific research of marine sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List and to pave the way for the use of carbon credit to help finance sites’ conservation efforts. The new 3-year partnership will explore how carbon credit can help finance on-site conservation action at select ...

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre (WHC) learned with sadness the news of the accidental explosion that devastated the Saratoga Hotel, in Havana, on May 6, causing a significant number of losses and injuries, as well as considerable damage. The WHC expresses its most sincere condolences to the families of the victims, to the injured and to all Cubans. “To address this terrible accident, we ...

UNESCO expresses its deep regret at the passing of Amir Pašić. Amir Pašić was an international scholar and professor of architecture, and the former Head of the Architectural Department of the Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA) in Istanbul, Turkey. "I would like to pay tribute to the memory of Amir Pašić and the incredible contribution he made to restoration and ...

Message from Ms Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of African World Heritage Day 5 May 2022. Fifty years ago, the States Members of UNESCO met to adopt the World Heritage Convention, which to this day remains the cornerstone of international cultural cooperation. In 1978, this essential instrument finally became operational when the first 12 sites were  inscribed on ...

UNESCO creates an online Geographic Information System to better protect World Heritage properties The World Heritage Online Map Platform is a new online Geographic Information System (GIS) for World Heritage, funded by the Government of Flanders (Belgium) through the Flanders UNESCO Trustfund (FUT). The Europe and North America region has been chosen as a pilot for the development of this ...

The report on the third regional workshop for Europe on “The Role of Visitor Centres in UNESCO Designated Sites,” held between 23 September and 2 October 2021, has been released. During online and in-presence activities, held in Ercolano, Italy, participants explored the role of visitor centres through a sustainable development lens and reflected on their potential as a catalyst for community ...

The “Interpretive Planning at World Heritage Properties in Europe” report published by UNESCO presents the concept, methodology, and outcomes of the first regional training course on enhancing interpretive planning at World Heritage properties in Europe, held in 2021. The initiative aims to highlight the potential of heritage interpretation in transversally supporting the objectives of World ...

The call for applications to participate in the second regional course on interpretive planning at World Heritage properties (WH-Interp) is now open. You have until 18 May 2022, 12 pm CET to apply! The course organised by UNESCO in cooperation with Interpret Europe is mostly aimed at practitioners with a professional role in the management of World Heritage properties in Europe, especially ...

In 1982, UNESCO’s General Conference established 18 April as the International Day for Monuments and Sites. The Day is promoted by ICOMOS globally, and the theme for 2022 is ‘Heritage and Climate.’ Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time, and among the greatest threats facing cultural and natural UNESCO World Heritage monuments and sites. One in three natural sites and one ...

All World Heritage-listed reefs are at risk of disappearing by the end of this century. On the occasion of the Our Ocean Conference in Palau, Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General, announces an emergency plan to give them the best chance of survival, with the support of the Global Fund for Coral Reefs. She also calls for an international mobilization to prevent coral reef ...

In response to the call to empower African experts working for World Heritage, UNESCO in partnership with the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF), ICCROM, ICOMOS and IUCN launched the Mentorship Programme for African World Heritage Professionals on 16 February 2022 through an online event. This Mentorship Programme is developed to better capacitate African World Heritage professionals through ...

UNESCO and ICCROM held an online ceremony to mark the launch of their joint initiative “Improving Management Effectiveness of World Heritage in Africa” with representatives from UNESCO World Heritage, ICCROM, IUCN, the Ambassadors of Japan, Norway, South Africa and Switzerland, and other participants. This event marks the end of the first set of activities (from 6 December 2021 to 24 January ...

From 27 to 30 March 2022, UNESCO undertook a pilot environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling campaign in the Gulf of Porto: Calanche of Piana, Gulf of Girolata, Scandola Reserve World Heritage site (France), to prepare the global roll-out of its citizen science eDNA initiative. Youth aged 7 to 11 years old from the school in Ota-Porto nearby the World Heritage area collected eDNA samples and ...

On 8 and 10 February 2022, attacks involving improvised explosive devices resulted in the death of four rangers, two drivers, one instructor and one soldier, with 12 other individuals hospitalised with critical injuries in the W National Park in Benin, one of the components of the W-Arly-Pendjari Complex (Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger) inscribed on the World Heritage List. The UNESCO Rapid ...

UNESCO, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) will undertake a joint Advisory mission to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a component of the World Heritage site "Paris, banks of the Seine", from 28 to 29 March 2022, in order to assess the works in progress following ...

Further to recent reports and inquiries, regarding the displacement of the Maasai people in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area World Heritage property, UNESCO wishes to recall that neither the World Heritage Committee – the intergovernmental body of 21 elected States governing the Convention – nor UNESCO Secretariat have at any time asked for the displacement of the Maasai people.  UNESCO ...

The Secretariats of the world’s eight major biodiversity-related Conventions, including the World Heritage Convention, call for an inclusive post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework to halt nature loss and deliver on the governments’ vision of living in harmony with nature by 2050. Failure to act would hamper the planet’s capacity to provide food, water and other benefits to people and make it ...

UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) will undertake a mission to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef from 21 to 30 March 2022 to assess its state of conservation and a long-term sustainability plan for its protection. The mission is at the invitation of Australia and in response to the request made by the World Heritage Committee at its most ...