Decision 38 COM 7B.56

Wadi Rum Protected Area (Jordan) (C/N 1377)

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined document WHC-14/38.COM/7B.Add,
2. Recalling Decision 35 COM 8B.15 adopted at its 35th session (UNESCO, 2011),
3. Notes the report of the 2014 joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS/IUCN reactive monitoring mission to the property and the progress made on the conservation and management recommendations;
4. Urges the State Party to take urgent measures to ensure the removal of illegal tourist camps from the property, and to rehabilitate degraded areas;
5. Also urges the State Party to establish an integrated cultural and natural heritage database to fully identify the attributes of Outstanding Universal Value, and to serve as the basis for conservation monitoring, and appropriate interpretation;
6. Reiterates its request to the State Party to ensure that the updated management plan provides legal measures and policies, backed by the necessary staff and financial resources, to enable effective management of the property and its buffer zone, including the regulation of development activities, tourism infrastructure and facilities, and to integrate the strategy for visitor management including vehicle route control within the property;
7. Also reiterates its request to the State Party to ensure, in implementing the management plan, provisions for additional and appropriately trained staff within the management unit for the property focused on research, protection and presentation of the geological, geomorphological and cultural values of the property and engagement of national and international research institutions in the management system for the property;
8. Also requests the State Party to fully implement the requests made by the World Heritage Committee at its 35th session and the specific recommendations by the 2014 joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS/IUCN reactive monitoring mission;
9. Further requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 December 2015, a report, including a 1-page executive summary, on the state of conservation of the property and the implementation of the above, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 40th session in 2016.