World Heritage

UNESCO’s newest World Heritage Sites

“UNESCO’s newest World Heritage Sites”

by Katia Hetter via “CNN News“

There’s the site where Jesus was believed to have been baptized by John the Baptist. And then there are the spots where French Champagne and Burgundy were born. And you remember the Alamo, part of the San Antonio Missions of Texas?

They are among the 27 newest members of the exclusive UNESCO World Heritage List.

Since Friday, the United Nations’ cultural body has named natural, cultural and combination sites around the world to its prestigious preservation list. The World Heritage List now includes 1,031 natural and cultural wonders that are considered to be places of “outstanding universal value.”

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee had been considering new sites at a meeting in Bonn, Germany, that started June 28.

San Antonio Missions site gets World Heritage status

The inscribed sites of “outstanding universal value” must also meet one or more of 10 criteriasuch as “representing a masterpiece of human creative genius,” containing “exceptional natural beauty” or being an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement.

UNESCO has been adding sites to the World Heritage List since 1978. Nations often spend years developing pitches for inclusion on the list because of its significant cultural cachet and the fame and resources it can attract to sites in need of restoration and protection. They must convince the UNESCO committee that they will protect their sites and support them financially. . . .

History in shambles: World Heritage sites after the Nepal earthquake

“History in shambles: World Heritage sites after the Nepal earthquake”

by Brian Ries via “Mashable“

History in shambles: World Heritage sites after the Nepal earthquake

A handout photo provided by the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) on 26 April 2015 of rescue workers sifting the ruins of a building for possible survivors in Kathmandu, Nepal, 25 April 2015.

The centuries-old monuments spread throughout the Kathmandu Valley were heavily damaged in the massive earthquake that struck Nepal on Saturday, a United Nations official said on Monday. Some of the sites suffered “extensive and irreversible damage.”

Irina Bokova, director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said she was “shocked” by the earthquake’s devastating impact on Nepal’s cultural heritage in the country, in particular the “extensive and irreversible damage at the World Heritage site of Kathmandu Valley.”

UNESCO Site — A photo shows devastation at the World Heritage site in Kathmandu after a earthquake toppled monuments and temples on April 25, 2015.

The sites are made up of seven separate groups of monuments. They include the Durbar Squares of Hanuman Dhoka (Kathmandu), Patan and Bhaktapur, the Buddhist “stupas” of Swayambhu and Bauddhanath and the Hindu temples of Pashupati and Changu Narayan.

The Nepalese government describes the seven sites as “medieval royal palace complexes” or “religious temple complexes,” calling them “archaeologically, historically, culturally and religiously very important” to the Kathmandu Valley.

The Kathmandu Valley was removed from the UN’s list of World Heritage in Danger in 2007, and the government has undertaken a series of conservation efforts to protect them from encroaching development since then.

Three of the sites were “almost fully destroyed”

According to a preliminary assessment done by the organization, the Durbar Squares of Patan, Hanuman Dhoka (Kathmandu) and Bhaktapur, were “almost fully destroyed” in the earthquake.

A general view of the Basantapur Durbar Square that was damaged in Saturday’s earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 26, 2015.

Some of that destruction was captured by Kishor Rana, who flew a drone above the sites in the hours after the earthquake struck.

“These are desperate times but we must all unite together in times like these,” said Kishor Rana on Facebook, who has pledged to shoot more of the sites. “Out of respect to the victims family, I did not take footages of live rescues taking place. We not only lost many lives and homes but we lost many pieces of our cultural heritage, our history.”

World’s First Heritage Sites

“World’s First Heritage Sites”

by Katia Hetter via “CNN“

(CNN) — Checking off the world’s most important natural and cultural wonders can be a herculean task.

The World Heritage List — that most lauded and recognizable of preservation lists — includes nearly 1,000 sites all over the world.

That number will almost certainly increase when the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization meets June 15-25 in Qatar.

Instead of sorting through that encyclopedic list, why not start at the very beginning with the first 12 sites?

The Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, Yellowstone National Park in the United States and the Island of Goree in Senegal were among the 12 sites named to the first list in 1978.

Only countries that sign the convention creating the World Heritage Committee and list can nominate sites, and that was just 40 countries when the first nominations came out. Thirty-six years later, 191 nations have signed the convention.

“There is an incredible diversity of sites both natural and cultural around the world,” said Mechtild Rossler, deputy director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre, a 22-year veteran of the organization. “The beauty of this convention is that the text defining natural and cultural heritage is very broad.”

Being named to the list is a big deal. Government officials work for years to prepare their nominations, and preservation officials hope for those designations to support their work. And what tourist site doesn’t tout its World Heritage Site designation?

While we wait to learn the newest members of this prestigious list, here are the first 12 World Heritage sites, listed in the order in which they are listed in the minutes of the September 1978 meeting in Washington.

L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Park, Canada

What’s left of the 11th-century Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Park on the island of Newfoundland in Canada is the earliest evidence of the first European presence in North America.

Excavations have found timber-framed, peat-turf buildings like those found in Iceland and Norse Greenland during the same period. It’s the first and only known Viking site in North America. The site was protected by the government of Canada in 1977, just a year before its inclusion on the World Heritage List.

Nahanni National Park, Canada . . .