Blandt de 21 lande i komiteen stemte 13 for, seks imod og to undlod at stemme for beslutningen, der har stærk politisk symbolvirkning. Det er første verdensarv-sted, som Palæstina får anerkendt.
Palæstina blev for et halvt år siden optaget som fuldgyldigt medlem i UNESCO – som den hidtil eneste FN-organisation – trods protester fra Israel støttet af USA, der som konsekvens droppede et årligt millionbeløb i støtte til FNs Organisation for Uddannelse, Videnskab og Kultur (UNESCO).
FNs Nyhedstjeneste skriver udbyggende:
UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, which is meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, until 6 July, inscribed sites from Israel, Palau, Indonesia, Morocco, China, Senegal and Ivory Coast on the World Heritage List Friday.
The Nahal Me’arot/Wadi el-Mughara Caves at Mount Carmel in Israel covers 54 hectares and contains cultural deposits representing 500.000 years of human evolution with evidence of burials, early stone architecture and the transition from a hunter-gathering lifestyle to agriculture and animal husbandry.
The Rock Islands Southern Lagoon in Palau contains 445 uninhabited limestone islands of volcanic origin, and also counts with a complex reef system featuring over 385 coral species and different types of habitat.
The site harbours the highest concentration of marine lakes anywhere and isolated bodies of seawater separated from the ocean by land barriers.
Palau is situated in the Pacific, app. 500 km east of the Philippines. Five rice terraces and their water temples in Bali, Indonesia, were recognized (optaget på listen) for their cooperative water management system, known as subak, which dates back to the 9th century.
The modern capital of Morocco, Rabat, and the site of Xanadu, north of China’s Great Wall, were also added to the List, as were Bassari and Bedik Cultural Landscapes in south-east Senegal and the first capital of Ivory Coast, the historic town of Grand-Bassam.
The Committee meets once a year and is responsible for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, which defines the kind of natural or cultural sites that can be considered for inscription on the World Heritage List.
Se mere om alle nyoptagne natur- og kulturrigdomme på listen på http://whc.unesco.org/en/newproperties
Se alle 944 steder på Verdensarvslisten på http://whc.unesco.org/en/list
Bemærk, at den del af Verdensarven, der er i fare, er markeret med rødt.
