UNESCO receives 42 nominations to join World Heritage List

More than 40 natural or cultural sites – including five from countries never represented before – have been nominated for inscription this year on the World Heritage List run by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The agency’s 21-member World Heritage Committee will decide which of the 42 nominated sites to include on the list when it meets in Paris from 19 to 29 June. The committee will also examine the state of conservation of 34 sites on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

Sites are proposed by States parties to the World Heritage Convention and then the applications are reviewed by either the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) or the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Barbados, Jamaica, Micronesia, Palau, the Republic of Congo and the United Arab Emirates, which have never had a site on the World Heritage List, have nominated sites this year.

Barbados has nominated the city of Bridgetown and its Garrison, while Jamaica has proposed Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park. The UAE submitted the Cultural Sites of Al Ain: Hafit, Hili, Bidaa Bint Saud and Oases Areas.

Micronesia and Palau have made a joint nomination for the Yapese Stone Money sites, while the Republic of Congo has joined with neighbouring Cameroon and the Central African Republic (CAR) to propose the Trinational Sangha.

Other natural and/or cultural properties have been nominated by Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Benin, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Slovenia, Spain, Sudan, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine and Viet Nam.

The number of properties already on the World Heritage List, which recognizes sites for their “outstanding universal value,” is 911.