UNESCO

World Heritage glaciers cover almost 10% of the Earth’s glacierized area and play a crucial role in sustaining life on Earth. However, they are retreating at an accelerated rate because of climate change. By combining satellite data and projections at the site level, this study quantifies the extent of World Heritage glaciers’ retreat and its impact on global sea-level rise and provides projections of glacier mass loss.

As the World Heritage Convention celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2022, over 1100 sites around the world are recognized as World Heritage - places  that are so valuable to humanity that there conservation has been deemed our collective responsibility. Yet many of these exceptional places face  increasing pressure from diverse types of development projects within and around the sites.

World Heritage forests are some of the most biodiversity-rich habitats on Earth and play a crucial role in climate regulation by absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. However, these forests are under increasing anthropogenic pressures, including climate change.

This Resource Manual has a specific purpose: helping to manage natural values within World Heritage properties. As such it is aimed at natural and mixed World Heritage properties as well as cultural landscapes (inscribed under cultural criteria). The intention is to help managers understand and incorporate World Heritage concepts and processes into natural site management.

Настоящее Информационное руководство разработано с конкретной целью: способствовать управлению природными ценностями объектов всемирного наследия. Таким образом, оно касается объектов всемирного природного и смешанного культурно-природного наследия, а также культурных ландшафтов (последние включены в Список всемирного наследия в соответствии с критериями для объектов культурного наследия).