News

On 22 October 2015, the UNESCO Regional Office in Dakar united 31 experts, site managers, advisory body and community representatives in Cabo Verde to update the national Tentative List of natural and cultural properties Cabo Verde is considering nominating for future UNESCO World Heritage inscription. A success story The first Cabo Verde’s Tentative List, submitted to the World Heritage ...

The World Heritage Centre (WHC) is pleased to announce the Call for Projects for the World Heritage Volunteers (WHV) Campaign 2016. In the framework of the UNESCO World Heritage Education Programme, the Initiative is led by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre (WHC) in collaboration with the Co-ordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service (CCIVS), European Heritage Volunteers (as a ...

The Rapid Response Facility has made an emergency grant to Garamba National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to help tackle the continuing elephant poaching crisis there. Over 215 elephants have been killed in the past 18 months, and the park’s elephant population is now estimated to have fallen to between 1,100-1,400 individuals. If the poaching continues unchecked, it could lead to ...

The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture has published a positive strategic plan for the preservation of world’s heritage for the next ten years.  The publication entitled Our Common Heritage focuses mainly on the national strategy for heritage preservation, but encourages also the collaboration on Nordic and international levels, particularly with properties in the developing ...

On 1st November 2015, the Korean National Commission for UNESCO announced a donation of 100,000 USD to the World Heritage Fund. The announcement was made at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris by the Korean National Commission Secretary-General, Mr Dong-seok Min, in the presence of UNESCO Director-General, Ms Irina Bokova, and the Director of the World Heritage Centre, Ms Mechtild Rössler. The ...

Many different types of professionals respond to an unfolding crisis.This course provides strategies for interlocking culture specialists with humanitarian specialists during an emergency situation and aims to unify these sometimes conflicting perspectives. The course imparts practical skills and knowledge for taking simple measures to secure and stabilize endangered cultural heritage during ...

Christmas Eve 1968 might seem like a strange date to mark as a pivotal point in our understanding of Earth. Yet it was on that date that William Anders of Apollo 8 took the first color photo of earth from afar rising above the grey surface of the moon. Now nearly five decades later we have realized we live on an ocean world and yet protection of the open ocean – the high seas - has still ...

UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre welcomes the U.K. government's decision to reject the planning permission for the Navitus Bay Wind Park proposal offshore from the World Heritage property Dorset and East Devon Coast, often referred to as Jurassic Coast. This decision followed a detailed application review process which took into consideration the importance of the World Heritage site inscribed ...

Call for Applications for Cultural Mediterranean Projects. The Marc de Montalembert grant - 7000 euros - helps young people from countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea and below 28 years of age to undertake a project corresponding to a personal vocation and dedicated to the cultures or arts and crafts of the Mediterranean. Since 1994 Twenty five projects have been implemented by winners ...

The Albanian government has joined the EU in supporting UNESCO’s project aimed at the sustainable development of the Lake Ohrid region, a transboundary region in Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Two-thirds of Lake Ohrid is inscribed as a World Heritage site on the Macedonian side of the lake. The protection of this site would be further reinforced by extending World ...

On September 27, six weeks after it began exploratory drilling off the Northwest Coast of Alaska, Royal Dutch Shell announced that it is abandoning its quest for Arctic oil. Shell’s decision to cease operations in the Chukchi Sea is excellent news for the Natural System of Wrangel Island Reserve nearby. The Natural System of Wrangel Island Reserve is the only marine World Heritage site in ...

During the eighth Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Awards prize-giving ceremony, held in Monaco on 2 October 2015, H.S.H. Prince Albert II presented the Biodiversity Award to Emmanuel de Merode for his outstanding commitment to the preservation of the biodiversity of the Virunga National Park, one of five World Heritage sites of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Each year, the ...

The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, strongly condemned the destruction of the Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, a civil monument two thousand years old and symbol of the city inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. "This new destruction shows how extremists are terrified by history and culture – because understanding the past undermines and delegitimizes their claims – and embodies an ...

From 13 to 16 October 2015, Turin will host the 3rd World Forum on Local Economic Development and launch the EXTO-EXPO 2015 programme. Within this framework, the Centro Studi Silvia Santagata-Ebla (CSS-Ebla, Turin, Italy), is organising, with the support of the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe, Venice (Italy), the pilot edition of a capacity-building workshop on the ...

In October 2015, a joint UNESCO/ICOMOS/RAMSAR reactive monitoring mission will take place to the World Heritage site "Venice and its lagoon”(Italy), as requested by the World Heritage Committee to assess current conditions at the property. The World Heritage property of Venice and its lagoon was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1987. The UNESCO World Heritage Centre closely follows ...

Biodiversity and sustainable development are inextricably linked. Biodiversity, at the level of ecosystems, species and genes, forms the foundation of the Earth’s life support systems and provides the services that underpin human lives and prosperity. Our social and economic well-being depends on biodiversity, as does our future. World leaders are now gathered at United Nations Headquarters ...

Sustainable planning and management of tourism is one of the most pressing challenges facing the World Heritage Convention today and is the focus of the UNESCO World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme. The workshop on “Protecting World Heritage: Disaster Risk Management and Sustainable Tourism Planning” in Romania will set the basis for the development of a value-based management ...

The UNESCO Heritage Division and its World Heritage Centre is very pleased to participate in World Tourism Day, especially given the collaboration of the World Heritage Convention with the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), in efforts to develop sustainable tourism. World Heritage sites are the most outstanding cultural and natural places in the world, so they are often among the most ...

New York, 26 September — The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, today welcomed transfer of an alleged extremist to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to be tried for destroying religious and historical monuments in Mali. "I commend Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and the authorities of Mali and Niger for transferring the first suspect to the ICC accused of the war crime of ...

The second Transboundary Platform Meeting of the project “Towards strengthened governance of the shared transboundary natural and cultural heritage of the Lake Ohrid region” will take place on 2 October 2015 in Ohrid, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. This initiative is part of a total of six meetings that aim to support the Albanian and Macedonian governments in their efforts to ...