Seville, itself a cultural and beautiful city, is the home to this year’s UNESCO meeting to decide on the newest UNESCO world heritage sites. Read more here to find out more about this year’s candidates.
From this week up to the 30th of June the UNESCO is going to be involved in meetings to organise the future of the world’s UNESCO heritage sites! Currently the UNESCO has named 878 World Heritage Sites in 145 different nations. The meetings being held at the moment will be looking to decide which of the world’s monuments deserve to be named with the prestigious UNESCO mark.
One of the many beautiful cultural buildings in Seville
This year there are 30 candidates including 4 in natural spaces, 23 in cultural spaces and 3 mixtures. The debating and decisions are made behind closed doors. The reunion will be looking at sites that are already members that perhaps need more care, such as is the example of the Valle del Elba in Germany, where they want to build a big bridge in the middle of the reserve! This year’s meeting is the 33rd annual reunion. The reunion started yesterday with a meeting in the Palacio de Congresos, the Meeting Hall, and the Minister of Spanish Culture, Angeles González Sinde, and the director of UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura, were both present.
The 21 countries that currently make up the board of the UNESCO World Heritage will look at, amongst others, candidates from all over the world. Some of this years candidates include the Gold Route in Paratay in Brasil, The door of the 3 Arches of Dan in Isreal, the sacred Mountain on Sulamain-Too in Kirguistán and the historic centre of the Ribeira Grande in Cabo Verde. Amongst the natural spaces competing for the UNESCO mark are the National Parks of the Columns of the River Lena in Russia and the Park Arrecife of Tubbataha in the Philippines.
There are three new nations hoping to have a space marked a World Heritage Site by UNESCO for the first time, these are Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde and Kirguistán! Not only would this be really prestigious for the country but would force their leaders to care better for their country under the UNESCO rules. During the meetings the UNESCO board will be deciding how to share out their annual funds between the different sites.
This is an important meeting to be held in Seville, the city itself a beautiful and historic place. Seville is well worth a visit and is full of Spanish Culture and history. It’s the perfect place to visit either for a relaxing holiday or even to stay a while and learn Spanish and more about the culture!
