These are the new cultural and natural sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List
Like every year, the World Heritage Committee meets to add new members to the UNESCO World Heritage List . They do so by also reflecting on the need to conserve our Planet and generating a necessary conversation on sustainability and global policies for the preservation of the environment.
The 43rd meeting of the Committee will continue until July 10 in Baku, the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan, under the chairmanship of Abulfas Garayev , Minister of Culture of this country. These sessions aim to include new names and plan budgets for the protection of new members.
Among the 30 new additions, a Spanish destination within the category of cultural sites: **the Cultural Landscape of Risco Caído and sacred mountains of Gran Canaria**.
WORLD HERITAGE IN DANGER
In this new forum, in addition, two places have been eliminated from the list of World Heritage in Danger . It is about of the Church of the Nativity and pilgrimage route in Bethlehem (Palestine), and the Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works (Chili) .
The decision of the former is made after the restoration works on the roof, the exterior facades, the wall mosaics and the doors of the basilica and the creation of a conservation plan for the site; the second, due to the conservation efforts of the Chilean authorities, who have been able to reverse the fate of the fragility of the industrial buildings and remedy the lack of maintenance of the complex.
On the contrary, **the Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California (Mexico)** have been added to the list of World Heritage in Danger due to the imminent extinction of the vaquita marina, a cetacean that is estimated to remain , only, about ten specimens (in 2005 about 300 vaquitas were estimated) . The Islands Zone, inscribed in 2005, encompasses 244 islands, islets, and coastal areas of the Gulf of California.
Protests for the conservation of the vaquita marina
** 30 NEW MEMBERS ON THE UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE LIST**
The 30 new members are divided into three categories: **natural, cultural, mixed category (natural and cultural)**.
This year, in addition, the extension of one of the sites in the mixed category (the shore of Lake Ohrid and the city of the same name in North Macedonia) which will now also occupy the shore of the lake located in Albania , which also includes the Lin Peninsula up to the Macedonian border. In this small peninsula are the remains of a christian chapel from the middle of the 6th century as well as vestiges of prehistoric dwellings.
The other site added in mixed category, Paraty and Ilha Grande (in Brazil) , brings together a total of four protected natural areas of the Brazilian Atlantic forest, in addition to the city of Paraty (the final destination in Brazil of that 17th century gold route that carried the precious metal to Europe) . Some species in danger of extinction live in this region, such as the jaguar, the white-lipped peccary or the woolly spider monkey.
Ilha Grande (in Brazil)
There are four new members added to the category of natural sites: the migratory bird sanctuary on the coast of the Yellow Sea and the Gulf of Bohai of China (the largest system of tidal flats in the world and of great animal diversity, highlighting the birds among which are some of the most endangered species in the world) ; the hyrcanian forests of iran (850 km of archaic deciduous forests, about 25 to 50 million years old) ; the Vatnajökull National Park , in Iceland (1,400,000 hectares of volcanic surface) ; and the French southern territories and seas (the archipelagos of Crozet and Kerguelen, plus the islands of Saint-Paul and New Amsterdam that France owns in the Indian Ocean) .
The remaining 24 make up the great list of cultural World Heritage Sites. Among them, we highlight **, due to proximity, the Cultural Landscape of the Risco Caído and sacred mountains of Gran Canaria ** and the two new Portuguese additions: the complex of the Royal Works of Mafra (including the palace, the basilica, the convent, the 'Cerco' garden and the 'Tapada' royal hunting park), and the Bom Jesus del Monte Sanctuary in Braga.
Vatnajökull National Park