UNESCO today received a petition of signed by 125,000 people around the world protesting against the re-opening of a paper and pulp mill on the shores of Lake Baikal, a World Heritage site in the Russian Federation. The petition was presented to UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture, Francesco Bandarin, by Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), who agreed to bring it to ...

The World Heritage Centre has recently published a new booklet entitled "World Heritage in the Congo Basin". This publication is intended for both biodiversity specialists and the general public. It provides detailed information on two important initiatives undertaken by the World Heritage Centre for the preservation of natural heritage in Central Africa. The first initiative, ...

Aranjuez, the only Spanish site declared a Cultural Landscape in UNESCO´s World Heritage List, is hosting the 2nd World Heritage Ibero-American Youth Forum from 20 to June 30, 2010. The event comes in the wake of the 1st Ibero-American Youth Forum on World Heritage, held in Seville in June 2009, during the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee. This event gathers together young ...

A new website launched by Wetlands International, BirdLife International and the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) reveals major gaps in the protection of many critical sites used by migratory waterbirds across Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia.  The new 'Critical Site Network (CSN)' Tool (www.wingsoverwetlands.org/csntool) provides comprehensive ...

World Heritage site managers of 22 States Parties have been meeting in Yaoundé, Cameroon, since 21 June, 2010, to advance in the preparation of periodic reports in French and Portuguese-speaking African countries.The three-day sub-regional meeting, organized by the World Heritage Centre and the UNESCO Office in Yaoundé, was inaugurated on Monday 21 June 2010 by the Minister of ...

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre has launched an international storyboard competition for the creation of the next episode of the animated series Patrimonito's World Heritage Adventures. The competition invites young people to express their ideas in the form of a storyboard for the Patrimonito's World Heritage Adventures animated series. In the coming days, 187 National Commissions - every ...

The African World Heritage Fund (AWHF) strives towards the effective conservation and protection of Africa's natural and cultural heritage. AWHF is for all African Member states who have signed the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention in support of these goals. The AWHF is the first regional funding initiative within the framework of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. The AWHF was ...

Since the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee (Seville, 2009), the World Heritage Centre and IUCN have received a large number of letters from individuals who are concerned about the state of conservation of the the World Heritage property Lake Baikal (Russian Federation), and in particular about the re-opening of the Baikalsk Paper and Pulp Mill (BPPM) and its likely impacts on the ...

The World Heritage Centre of UNESCO has welcomed the support given by the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, to the World Heritage Committee's decision regarding "The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and the Related Group of Monuments" which requested that work on the construction of the Okhta Centre Tower be suspended and that new designs reducing the building's ...

Severe torrential rain has resulted in flooding and mudslides across much of Guatemala, causing some communities to be entirely cut off and requiring the evacuation of thousands of people. Tropical Storm Agatha, the first named storm of the Pacific hurricane season, made landfall on 29 May 2010 in Guatemala and left a trail of destruction across much of Central America. The World Heritage ...