UNESCO adds 26 new sites on World Heritage List

In this file photo from Monday, May 30, 2011, the statue of Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain make up part of the iconic landscape in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The UN's Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized Rio on Sunday, July 1, 2012, as an official world heritage site. <AP/NEWSis>

PARIS, July 2 (Xinhua) — A total of 26 new sites have been inscribed on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List this year, with Russia’s Lena Pillars Nature Park being the last to join in on Monday, the Paris-based UNESCO said in a statement.

The inscriptions were approved during the 36th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee which is currently held in St. Petersburg.

The new inscriptions of World Heritage Sites include five natural sites: Lakes of Ounianga (Chad); Sangha Trinational (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo); Chengjiang Fossil Site (China); Western Ghats (India); Lena Pillars Nature Park (Russia), and 20 cultural sites. Rock Islands Southern Lagoon (Palau) was inscribed as a mixed natural and cultural site.

Chad, Congo, Palau and Palestine had World Heritage sites inscribed on the list for the first time, the statement said.

While being added to the List of World Heritage, the birthplace of Jesus, Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route, Bethlehem (Palestine) was inscribed on List of World Heritage in Danger.

Others that were also added to the List of World Heritage in Danger includes two of Mali’s World Heritage sites, Timbuktu and the Tomb of Askia; Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City of Britain and the Fortifications on the Caribbean Side of Panama: Portobelo-San Lorenzo of Panama.

Meanwhile, to recognize the successful conservation, the World Heritage Committee removed two from the List of World Heritage in Danger: Fort and Shalamar Gardens in Lahore (Pakistan) and the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras (Philippines).

news@theasian.asia