Nearly 50 sites nominated to join UNESCO World Heritage List

The committee that considers requests for inscription on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage List will have 47 nominated sites to choose from when it meets for its annual session next month in Canada, UNESCO announced today.

The nominations comprise 13 natural sites and 34 cultural sites, including two that cross national boundaries, according to a press release issued by UNESCO ahead of the nine-day World Heritage Committee meeting, scheduled to start in Québec on 2 July.

The nominating countries include five States that have no sites inscribed on the World Heritage List: Kyrgyzstan, Papua New Guinea, San Marino, Saudi Arabia and Vanuatu.

UNESCO said the committee would also scrutinize the state of conservation of 30 sites that have been placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger because of problems such as pollution, pillaging, the impact of natural disasters or poorly managed mass tourism.

Those sites include the cultural landscape of the Dresden Elbe Valley in Germany, which may be deleted from the World Heritage List if the 21-member committee determines that the building of a bridge in the heart of the landscape warrants the move.

Currently there are 851 sites of “outstanding universal value” in 141 countries that have been inscribed on the World Heritage List, and each year sites are added after applications are first reviewed by either the International Council on Monuments and Sites or the International Union for Conservation of Nature.