The first guide for the insurance industry to protect our world’s priceless and irreplaceable assets was launched today at a major event by UN Environment’s Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) in São Paulo, Brazil, convening leading insurers, investors and banks. The pioneering guide, Protecting our World Heritage, insuring a sustainable future, builds on last year’s launch of the first insurance ...

Representatives from the city of Venice, the Italian government, UNESCO and ICOMOS came together at UNESCO Headquarters on 2 October 2019 to discuss the ongoing challenges facing Venice and its surrounding lagoon – an iconic site whose status as a World Heritage property is in jeopardy.  Inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1987, Venice is threatened on several fronts – from overtourism, ...

This year’s World Migratory Bird Day is dedicated to highlighting the problem of pollution with the theme, ‘Protect Birds: Be the Solution to Plastic Pollution.’ Waste and pollution are harmful to many World Heritage sites. Increased tourism means that more people are leaving trash at the world’s most iconic places. World Heritage sites are key stopover sites for birds, so the effective ...

International Day for Disaster Reduction promotes a global culture of risk awareness and disaster reduction by celebrating how people around the world are reducing their exposure to disasters. This year’s theme is based on one Target of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030: ‘Substantially reduce disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of services ...

The Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority (EWCA) in collaboration with UNESCO Addis Ababa Liaison Office and the UNESCO Regional Office for Eastern Africa organized a four-day technical workshop to strengthen national capacities in preparing World Heritage nomination dossiers for natural heritage sites, which ran from 23 to 27 September 2019 in Gondar Town, Amhara Region, ...