Decision 38 COM 7A.40

Salonga National Park (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (N 280)

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Document WHC-14/38.COM/7A,
2. Recalling Decision 37 COM 7A.7 adopted during its 37th session (Phnom Penh, 2013),
3. Welcomes with satisfaction the important efforts of the State Party to secure the property and the efforts of the patrols to reduce professional poaching of elephants, and encourages the State Party to continue these efforts and to reinforce them where pockets of resistance still remain;
4. Takes note of the difficulties reported by the managers of the property concerning the participatory management of natural resources and their implication in the demarcation of the property and also encourages the State Party to establish a community conservation strategy;
5. Urges the State Party to continue to implement the corrective measures, as updated by the joint World Heritage Centre/IUCN reactive monitoring mission in 2012 to rehabilitate the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property;
6. Launches an appeal to donors to provide the necessary financial and technical support to the site manager for the implementation of the corrective measures;
7. Reiterates its request to the State Party to undertake inventories of flagship species to quantify the state of the OUV of the property and the Desired state of conservation for removal of the property from the List of World Heritage in Danger as well to establish a realistic timetable;
8. Regrets that the State Party has not provided detailed information regarding the oil exploration and exploitation projects in the central basin that risk encroaching into the property, as requested by the Committee at its 36th and 37th sessions and urges the State Party to provide this information;
9. Recalls its position that mining is incompatible with World Heritage status, which is supported by the International Council of Mining and Metals (ICMM) international position statement of not undertaking such activities within World Heritage properties;
10. Requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 February 2015, an updated report, including a 1-page executive summary, on the state of conservation of the property and the implementation of the points mentioned above, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 39th session in 2015;
11. Decides to continue to apply the Reinforced Monitoring mechanism;
12. Also decides to retain Salonga National Park (Democratic Republic of the Congo) on the List of World Heritage in Danger.