21 New World Heritage Sites Inscribed
The 34th session of the World Heritage Committee meeting took place in Brasilia from 25 July - 2nd August 2010 to consider nominations for the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger.
The Committee inscribed 21 new World Heritage Sites, including 15 cultural, 5 natural and 1 mixed properties. Three countries, Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Tajikistan, had sites added for the first time. The World Heritage Committee also added four sites to the List of World Heritage in Danger, and removed the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) from this List.
The World Heritage Committee announced that although the UK’s nomination for the workplace and home of Charles Darwin to join the list was very strong in terms of recognising scientific achievement, further in-depth study and analysis was still needed. They have referred the nomination back to the UK authorities for these issues to be addressed.
To become a World Heritage Site, a site must be put forward for nomination by its government and demonstrate that it meets one or more of ten criteria laid down by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.
The first step for an aspiring site is to be included on the UK’s tentative list of future nominations. The tentative list is a list of sites which the UK Government may consider nominating for World Heritage Status. This tentative list is usually set for 10 year period of time.
The UK Government is currently preparing a new Tentative List of natural, cultural and mixed sites for potential nomination for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List, to be submitted to UNESCO in 2011, with a view to putting forward nominations to the World Heritage Committee from 2012.
Written: 12/08/2010 , last modified: 12/08/2010
Proto-urban site of Sarazm, Tajikistan