News

Upon the conclusion of the second Governing Board meeting of the Lucio Costa Centre (CLC), Regional Training Centre for World Heritage Management (Category II Centre under the auspices of UNESCO), located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the member countries of the CLC adopted the Work Plan 2018-2020 as a new agenda of activities and actions in the field of World Heritage. The meeting involved the ...

Over the last several months, the World Heritage Centre has been receiving numerous messages from citizens from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as from other countries, expressing their concern regarding the ‘Proposed Scheme’ for the A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down project, located within the boundaries of the World Heritage site “Stonehenge, Avebury and ...

On the night of 22 to 23 August 1791, in the western part of the island of Saint-Domingue, then French colony of the West Indies, an uprising of slaves took place, which would mark a turning point in the tragic history of the slave trade. The war that ensued culminated in 1804 in the independence of that part of the island, which took the name of Haiti, and led to the recognition of the equal ...

This year, International Youth Day focuses on the theme: "Safe spaces for youth". Youth is a decisive phase in personal development. It is the age when people venture into the unknown, seeking new horizons; it is a time of encounters, often memorable ones; it is a time of first commitments. However, youth is also a vulnerable age, when negative experiences can quickly lead to withdrawal, ...

Indigenous peoples are among the most vulnerable populations in the world. This International Day is an opportunity to raise public awareness of their precarious situation, particularly in relation to migration, which is the Day's theme in 2018. Migration influences the way of life of many indigenous peoples, whether these be nomadic pastoral societies who follow the transhumance calendar, ...

The World Heritage Beech Forests Conference was held in Vienna, Austria on 23 July 2018. Eighty-four participants from 15 States Parties came to discuss the challenges and future of the UNESCO World Heritage “Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe”. The conference supported the upstream process and enabled direct communication with UNESCO and IUCN ...

The following is a message from United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres delivered on 6 August 2018, at the memorial ceremony in Hiroshima on the 73rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) was the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded on 6 August 1945. It was inscribed on the World Heritage ...

On 1 August 2018, the World Heritage Centre received a petition signed by more than 2,400 citizens who expressed their concerns about deforestation at Lake Baikal World Heritage site (Russian Federation). The competent authorities of the State Party as well as the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Body IUCN are informed of the concerns raised by the campaign. The state of conservation ...