Baltimore Sun, United States

World Heritage list grows

Associated Press
August 10, 2008

QUEBEC CITY, Canada – Baha’i holy places in Israel, the Monarch
butterfly biosphere reserve of Mexico and the historic center of
Camaguey, a Spanish colonial town in Cuba first settled in 1528, are
among the new sites added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee met last month in Quebec City to
add the 19 cultural sites and eight natural sites to the list, which
now numbers 878 sites in 145 countries. Detailed information about
each site is available at whc.unesco.org/en/news/453.

In Mexico, in addition to the butterfly reserve, the fortified town of
San Miguel and the Sanctuary of Jesus Nazareno de Atotonilco, cited
for their architecture, were added to the list.

In Europe, new UNESCO World Heritage sites are the ancient stone
walls, shelters and landscape of Stari Grad on the Adriatic island of
Hvar in Croatia; 17th-century fortifications along the borders of
France; innovatively designed Modernist housing in Berlin, dating from
1910-1933; the Italian towns of Mantua and Sabbioneta, cited for
architecture and their role in Renaissance culture; eight wooden
churches dating to the 16th through 18th centuries in Slovakia; the
Rhaetian Railway, which includes two historic railway lines in Italy
and Switzerland that cross the Alps; and the historic center of the
republic of San Marino, which dates to the 13th century, and San
Marino’s Mount Titano.

In Asia and the South Pacific, new sites added to the World Heritage
list are Cambodia’s Temple of Preah Vihear; the "tulou" of China’s
Fujian province, which are circular communal earthen houses; Melaka
and George Town, historic cities of the Straits of Malacca in
Malaysia; the Kuk swamps in New Guinea, which contain archaeological
evidence of thousands of years of farming, and three sites on islands
in Vanuatu associated with a 17th-century chief, Roi Mata.

In the Middle East, the World Heritage list now includes, in Iran, the
Armenian monasteries of St. Thaddeus and St. Stepanos and the Chapel
of Dzordzor; Al-Hijr, Saudi Arabia’s first World Heritage property, an
archaeological site preserving Nabataean civilization dating to the
1st century B.C., and the Socotra islands in Yemen, cited for their
biodiversity.

In Africa, Kenya’s Mijikenda Kaya Forests were recognized for the
remains of fortified villages dating back centuries that are now
considered sacred sites, and Le Morne, a mountain on the coast of
Mauritius, was included for its history as a shelter for runaway
slaves.

Natural properties added to the UNESCO list, in addition to the Mexico
butterfly reserve, are Canada’s Joggins Fossil Cliffs, a fossil-rich
area of Nova Scotia; China’s Mount Sanqingshan National Park, noted
for its scenic landscape and "fantastically shaped" granite peaks and
pillars; the coral reefs and lagoons of New Caledonia; Surtsey, an
Icelandic island formed by volcanic eruptions in the 1960s and which
is a pristine laboratory for plant and animal life; two nature
reserves in the steppe and lakes of northern Kazakhstan; and a
geologically significant mountainous area of Switzerland known as the
Glarus Overthrust.