Nearly 50 sites nominated to join UNESCO World Heritage List
20 June 2008 - 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.
ENDS