The Acropolis of Athens, one of the most perfect edifices human genius has ever built, and a World Heritage Site, is being disfigured by the massive use of reinforced concrete.
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A critical review of the 44th Session of the World Heritage Committee by WHW Chair Stephan Doempke

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When the eastern half of the island of Rennell was inscribed in the World Heritage List in 1998, the local community was in full support, hoping that their lives would change for the better through tourism and investments. They were wrong. Both the international community and their own government have turned their back on them, and it has come to the point that they suffer food shortages. Now they are warning that they will start logging their forest – one of the most pristine in all the small Pacific Islands – and give up on the World Heritage status which hasn’t brought them any benefit in more than 20 years.
The islanders need fishing gear and seedlings of fruit trees in order to provide for their own food. When all UNESCO member states don’t care to help East Rennell, we will not stand idly by.

Please make your generous donation, earmarked “East Rennell” here.

Rennell is the southernmost island of the Solomon Islands in the western Pacific. It is the largest raised coral atoll in the world. A major feature of the island is Lake Tegano, which was the lagune of the atoll before the island rose up from the ocean due to geological activity. Rennell is still covered with dense tropical forest averaging 20m in height and providing habitat for a multitude of rare and endemic birds and plants. Its population of 1,800 is an ethnic Polynesian minority in the mostly Melanesian Solomon Islands.

The local communities of East Rennell have been congratulated for their commitment to protect the World Heritage site. However, bauxite mining is now widespread in the western part of the island, which has led to an invasion of rats who devastate fields and crops. Logging has been approved within 200 m of the World Heritage boundary leading to a loss of groundwater. At the same time, Lake Tegano is threatened by sea level rise and increased salinity, and as a result, it has become impossible for the community to grow taro, their staple food which is also of great cultural importance.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – the body advising UNESCO – has stated in its recent report:

“The real long-term threat to the … site is the lack of alternative income generating alternatives to commercial logging and mining … Additional support for sustainable livelihoods should urgently be provided to communities to ensure protection and management of the site.”

We are in close contact with Jorge Tauika, the leader of the local community’s Lake Tegano World Heritage Site Association, a registered charity which will be the recipient of our support. Jorge has been invited by UNESCO before and enjoys high trust and respect of both the local and international community.

With your support, he can go to the capital, Honiara, in order to buy the fishing equipment and seedlings so urgently needed to keep his people healthy and the World Heritage safe.
Please make your generous donation, earmarked “East Rennell” above.
Thank you for your support!
Sincerely,
Stephan Doempke
Chairman and CEO, World Heritage Watch

The Hagia Sophia is widely considered to be one of the most important buildings in the history of architecture as well as the history of religions, and indeed of world history at large. It was the last monumental building of antiquity and the biggest building of the world at its time.
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PRESS RELEASE

on the occasion of World Environment Day

EMBARGOED UNTIL FRIDAY, 5 JUNE 11:00 a.m. CEST

World Heritage Watch Report 2020 alerts to tourism and mining as increasing threats to the world heritage

Mining remains a major threat to UNESCO's World Heritage sites but is increasingly joined by tourism, according to a new report issued by World Heritage Watch, a global network of more than 170 NGOs, indigenous peoples and civil society activists who monitor sites on the ground.

While some sites in Siberia such as the Forests of Komi and the Altai Mountains have been of concern for years, new plans for uranium mining have been reported near the Grand Canyon and in southern Greenland, and a Venezuelan activist group has uncovered devastating gold mining in Canaima National Park, one of the world's gems for biodiversity and harbouring Angel Falls, the worlds highest. Although UNESCO has a No-Go-Policy in place for mining in World Heritage sites, this is often ignored or evaded by its member states following their perceived national interest.

Meanwhile, tourism has grown to an extent that it is becoming an increasing factor of threat to UNESCO's World Heritage, and often promoting tourism, not protecting the site, is now the motivation for seeking inscription in the World Heritage List. While visiting the sites is expressly encouraged, there is a risk that World Heritage status will morph from an instrument of protection to a factor of threat.

Until the Covid-19 pandemic, World Heritage sites were particularly affected by the excesses of overtourism because they are preferred tourist destinations due to their importance and attractiveness. Tourist numbers skyrocketed as soon as sites were inscribed in the World Heritage List, and the large numbers of visitors quickly collided with the particularly strong protection requirements of the World Heritage sites. The phenomenon no more affects only well-known places such as Venice and Machu Picchu but also remote ones such as Lake Ohrid in Northern Macedonia and Hampi in India. The advocacy network now calls for using the worldwide standstill in tourism to rethink this development, and requests UNESCO to adopt strict guidelines for tourism planning before new sites are inscribed in its prestigious list.

World Heritage Watch provides information to UNESCO unreported by its member states in order to help the agency having a more comprehensive assessment of the real situation at the sites under its tutelage, and take more appropriate decisions to eliminate threats. Since its founding in 2014 it has earned a reputation with UNESCO to be the global voice of civil society in World Heritage matters.

Berlin, 4 June 2020

We are happy to introduce Rod Prosser, our representative for the Australia-Pacific Region. He will support us in promoting World Heritage Watch, extending the network, and fundraising. Over time we hope to find more committed individuals who will assume that responsibility in other parts of the world as well.

Rod is a New Zealand film-maker who has been making political documentaries since the 1970s. His New Zealand themes have included Maori sovereignty, environmental education, workers rights and the anti-nuclear movement. While living in Berlin in the 1990s, he made a number of documentaries for German television including films about the interdependent struggles for the environment, indigenous cultures and revolution in the Philippines, the history and culture of Rapanui/Easter Island, and American militarism in the Pacific. For most of his life, Rod has also been involved in solidarity work with peoples of the Third World (especially the Philippines) and has worked with NGOs in NZ and in Germany to support indigenous peoples, biosphere reserves and environmental activism.

Contact Rod Prosser through orodi@protonmail.com