The World Heritage Committee will be holding its 33rd annual meeting at Seville’s Exhibition and Congress Centre (FIBES) from 22-30 June to discuss the inclusion of new sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
During this year’s meeting – to be chaired by Maria Jesus San Segundo, ambassador and permanent delegate of Spain to the UNESCO – the signatory states of the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage will submit nominations of sites for inscription in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Three of these states – Burkino Faso, Cabo Verde and Kyrgyzstan – still do not have any site on the list.
A total of 30 sites have been nominated by the signatory states to be included on the World Heritage List: four natural sites, 23 cultural ones, and three mixed sites (both natural and cultural). Four of the nominations are transfrontier sites and seven are extensions of sites already included on the list. The Tower of Hercules at Corunna (Spain) is one of the nominated sites.
To date, the World Heritage List contains 878 sites of “exceptional universal value”, located in 145 signatory states, the breakdown being as follows: 679 cultural sites, 174 natural ones, and 25 mixed sites.
Along these lines, the island of Fuerteventura and the south of Orense have been designated Biosphere Reserves by the UNESCO’s Man and Biosphere programme, bring the total in Spain to 40.
