News

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 ...

Marking the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018, UNESCO and the European Union teamed up to develop a new project to start in 2019 that strengthens the connections between cultural heritage, youth and education. The project has two main components: one seeks to empower a new generation of heritage professionals and another aims to bring intangible cultural heritage into the ...

Nominations are now open, with the deadline for submission 30 April 2019. The Prize rewards outstanding action to safeguard and enhance the world’s major cultural landscapes, which can contribute significantly to sustainable development and achieve a number of goals set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The prizewinner, who may be an individual, an institution or a ...

The third meeting of the World Heritage Policy Compendium Working Group took place from the 11th to the 13th of December 2018 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The meeting was organized in order to finalize the draft Compendium in line with the request by the World Heritage Committee at its 42nd session in Manama, Bahrain. During the three-day working meeting, the Working Group, which ...

Under the high patronage of H.E. Abdulaziz bin Mohamed Al-Rowas, Advisor for Cultural Affairs to His Majesty the Sultan of Oman, some 30 experts gathered in Salalah, Oman, from 3 to 5 December 2018, to discuss the future of the World Heritage property “Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley” and to enhance cooperation between relevant stakeholders. Financially ...

Nearly two-thirds of the ocean, half of the world's surface, lies beyond the jurisdiction of nations. While 49 marine sites are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, all of them are currently limited to areas within nation’s territories. Following a pioneering UNESCO-IUCN report in 2016, experts concluded that these remote ocean areas do harbour globally unique areas that deserve ...

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre held a workshop on 26-27 November in Bhopal, India, with stakeholders of the new ‘World Heritage Journeys Buddha’ project. With the support of the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and in collaboration with National Geographic, the project focuses on three World Heritage sites in South Asia including Lumbini, the Birthplace of the Lord Buddha ...

In response to recent reports that Tanzania granted a contract for the construction of a dam within the Selous Game Reserve World Heritage property to two Egyptian companies, the Director of the World Heritage Centre reminded the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania of its obligations as signatory to the 1972 World Heritage Convention. Upon the inscription of Selous Game Reserve on ...