News

On behalf of the World Heritage Centre, Director Ms Mechtild Rössler expresses her solidarity with the efforts currently being undertaken by national authorities in Colombia to curb increasing security challenges in the country’s national parks, some of which are classified as natural World Heritage properties. In the light of these increasing and dramatic pressures, Parques Nacionales ...

The first regional meeting on "Transboundary Cooperation for effective management of World Heritage Sites in Africa" was held from 11 to 15 February 2019 in the city of Man (Côte d'Ivoire), located at 100 km from the Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve, the first African transboundary property inscribed on the World Heritage List. Funded by the Netherlands Funds-in-Trust, the main objective of ...

An oil spill has reportedly occurred in East Rennell, Solomon Islands on Tuesday, 19 February when a bulk carrier ran aground at Kangava Bay, just outside of the World Heritage property. East Rennell was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1998 and is the largest raised coral atoll in the world. The site includes Lake Tegano, a brackish lake containing many rugged limestone islets which ...

Launched in July 2017 with financial support from the Netherlands Funds-in-Trust, the “Communities and reinforcement of the management of the Royal Palaces of Abomey World Heritage Site” project, has been successfully concluded with a three-day cultural celebration event, from 27 to 29 December 2018. These ‘Cultural Days’ which responded to the theme “Let’s open our Palaces!”, were organized ...

In 2012, Rio de Janeiro, a Carioca landscape between the mountains and the sea, became the first urban cultural landscape ever inscribed on the World Heritage List.  To its beaches, carnival, football and World Heritage, also represented by the archaeological site of the Valongo pier (inscribed in 2017), the Brazilian metropolis now adds yet another attraction: architecture. Following an ...

On 1 October 1919 in Weimar (Germany), a new kind of art school founded by architect Walter Gropius welcomed its first students, and Bauhaus was born. In 2019, we are celebrating the centenary of this school founded after the First World War.  A festival, two museums, exhibitions and even a television series dedicated to Walter Gropius will mark the anniversary of this Movement that ...

UNESCO New Delhi and the Ministry of Tourism, West Bengal Government (India), in support of the Archaeological Survey of India, are organizing a sub-regional conference World Heritage Global Strategy in the context of South Asia on 21 and 22 February 2019 in Kolkata. The Global Strategy, launched in 1994 by the World Heritage Committee, has the aim to ensure that the List reflects the ...

After heavy rains hit northeastern Togo in August 2018, UNESCO led an emergency mission to the World Heritage Property of Koutammakou, to assess the scale of the damage including to some of the world’s rarest architectural structures – the two-storey mud “tower” houses known as Takienta. The mission, which comprised three international and four national experts, visited the villages of ...

This year’s World Wetlands Day under the theme of “Wetlands and Climate Change” highlights the importance of healthy and intact wetlands to one of the most pressing challenges of our times: climate change.  Celebrated annually on 2 February, the day the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands was adopted in 1971, World Wetlands Day is a success story of the international community ensuring efficient ...

Throughout 2018, the World Heritage Marine Programme led transformational changes at specific sites, furthered research on climate change impacts and advanced the fight against marine pollution. Download the Report The highlight of 2018 was undoubtedly the removal of the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System from the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger. Lauded in the New York Times as “A ...

Following the Fifth Meeting of the Coordinating Committee on Serial Transnational World Heritage Nomination of the Silk Roads, 4–5 December 2018, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, the participants including national focal points and experts from thirteen countries, adopted a list of decisions for further activities to preserve and manage the Cultural Heritage sites along the Silk Roads. The 5th ...

The staff of the World Heritage Centre would like to express its sadness after learning that Dr. Bradnee Chambers, Executive Secretary of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), passed away on 23 January 2019 after a short illness. This is a tragic loss for CMS, all biodiversity related Conventions and the United Nations. Bradnee became Executive ...

Following the decision adopted by the World Heritage Committee at its 42nd session (Manama, 2018), a high-level World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring mission, led by the Deputy Director of the World Heritage Centre, is being dispatched to the World Heritage property "Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz" (Uzbekistan) on 21-26 January 2019, at the invitation of the Uzbek government. The ...

A pioneering insurance industry guide to protect our planet’s most special places through its risk management, insurance and investment activities will be created in 2019 with leading insurers. This follows the 2018 launch of the world’s first insurance industry statement of commitment to protect World Heritage Sites developed by UN Environment’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance ...

From 9 to 11 January 2019, ICCROM organized an experts meeting at the Egyptian Academy of Arts in Rome to reflect on its new initiative entitled “Africa Programme 2020-2029: Changing the Face of  Heritage and Conservation in Africa”. The 15 experts representing cultural and heritage institutions on the African continent, ICCROM and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, shared their specific ...

The Earth Skills Network (ESN) is a unique collaboration between Earthwatch, UNESCO, IUCN and the business community. It connects leaders from the business and conservation community through mentoring and skill-sharing opportunities. The Earth Skills Network provides funded training in: business planning and effective management practices and, personal development of leadership ...

Dear friends, As 2019 begins, I’d like thank everyone who has made efforts to protect World Heritage sites, whether by taking action at a property, making a donation for site preservation, or just by being a thoughtful tourist. 2018 was a challenging year with many threats to World Heritage globally. In addition to specific threats ranging from logging to overfishing, from ill-advised ...