World Heritage

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).

This independent technical review assesses the "Strategic environmental assessment report for the proposed Rufiji hydropower project", dated April 2019, that relates to the planned Rufiji River Hydropower Project (RRHP).

The first part of this report presents a general review and collection of case-studies on the impacts of water infrastructure on World Heritage areas world-wide. Analysing case studies from all continents, the report comes to the conclusion that the values of river ecosystems, although widely recognized by science and indigenous cultures alike, so far have not been adequately taken into account during implementation of the World Heritage Convention.

Volcanoes are true wonders of the planet; they are central to the formation, evolution and sustenance of biological systems; they form some of our deepest and most significant cultural attachments to the land; and they attract large numbers of visitors for their aesthetic appeal.

This report details multiple legal breaches by Malaysian palm oil producer Radiant Lagoon near the UNESCO-protected Gunung Mulu National Park, one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.

This rapid technical review assesses the “Updated Environmental Impact Assessment Report for 2100 MW Power Generation from the Rufiji Hydropower Project in Selous Game Reserve, Pwani and Morogoro regions, Tanzania” of 18 October 2018 that relates to a planned hydropower project to be built at Stiegler’s Gorge in the north of Selous Game Reserve.

Natural World Heritage sites are internationally recognised as having the highest global nature conservation priority. As of November 2017, there are 241 natural and mixed (both cultural and natural) World Heritage sites, representing about 0.1% of the total number of protected areas globally, but yet with a total coverage of 294 million hectares, accounting for 8% of the combined surface of terrestrial and 6% of marine protected areas.