The World Heritage Committee,
1. Having examined Documents WHC-13/37.COM/8B, WHC-13/37.COM/INF.8B1, WHC-13/37.COM/INF.8B2 and WHC-13/37.COM/INF.8B4,
2. Defers the examination of the nomination of Pimachiowin Aki, Canada, to the World Heritage List in order to allow the State Party to:
a) Consider options, in collaboration with the First Nations and the partners in the nomination, to refine and strengthen the boundaries of the nominated property to meet integrity requirements in relation to the operation of ecological processes within the property and surrounding areas;
b) Explore whether there is a way that the relationship with nature that has persisted for generations between the Anishinaabe First Nations and Pimachiowin Aki, might be seen to have the potential to satisfy one or more of the cultural criteria and allow a fuller understanding of the inter-relationship between culture and nature within Pimachiowin Aki and how this could be related to the World Heritage Convention .
3. Recommends that the State Party invite a joint ICOMOS and IUCN Advisory Mission, under the principles of the Upstream Processes, in order to address the above mentioned issues;
4. Commends the State Party, the First Nations and other stakeholders for their exemplary efforts to develop a nomination that will protect, maintain and restore the significant cultural and natural assets and values associated with Pimachiowin Aki;
5. Recognizes that this mixed nomination and the associated IUCN and ICOMOS evaluations have raised fundamental questions in terms of how the indissoluble bonds that exist in some places between culture and nature can be recognized on the World Heritage List, in particular the fact that the cultural and natural values of one property are currently evaluated separately and that the present wording of the criteria may be one contributor to this difficulty;
6. Further recognizes that maintaining entirely separate evaluation processes for mixed nominations does not facilitate a shared decision-making process between the Advisory Bodies;
7. Requests the World Heritage Centre, in consultation with the Advisory Bodies to examine options for changes to the criteria and/or to the Advisory Body evaluation process to address this issue and decides to include a debate on this item on the agenda of its 38th session.