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Our work

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Our core mission is to alert UNESCO and the world to developments that jeopardize the World Heritage sites through up-to-date, reliable information from the ground, giving a voice to many committed local groups, often in remote places or unfree countries, who would otherwise remain unheard. Together we form a strong network where all of us care for every one of us.
 
UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, consisting of 21 countries elected for four-year terms, inscribes new sites (“properties”) on the World Heritage List and monitors the state of conservation of those sites already inscribed.
 
However, UNESCO itself cannot be present on the ground at more than 1,200 sites. It must rely on reports submitted by the States which are Parties to the World Heritage Convention. Actually, according to our research, in 2024 there were 439 sites from which UNESCO hadn’t received any State of Conservation Report for 10 years or more.
 
And here is the problem: Governments often do not inform UNESCO about problems at the sites, or new projects which they intend to realize and which could compromise their Outstanding Universal Value, their authenticity or integrity. As a result, UNESCO remains in the dark about what is actually going on.

It is at this point where World Heritage Watch comes in to support UNESCO through reports by civil society – local people of various backgrounds who observe misdirected developments, risks and threats that otherwise would remain unnoticed.

Time and again World Heritage sites are threatened by development pressure, mass tourism, wars, resource depletion, urbanization, climate change, infrastructure projects, or by neglect and mismanagement.
 
We support and advise our global network of activists to prepare reports about such threats which we share and discuss with UNESCO and its technical Advisory Bodies – IUCN for natural sites and ICOMOS for cultural sites – before they set the agenda and draft the decisions for the next annual session of the World Heritage Committee.
 
These reports are published in our annual World Heritage Watch Report and disseminated among UNESCO, all States Parties to the WH Convention, the international media, and the global heritage expert community.
 
In a last step, we participate in the sessions of the World Heritage Committee where we lobby for better protection of the sites and raise our voice on the plenary sessions – live-streamed globally for the world to know.
 
By now, we have reported about World Heritage Sites in 78 countries, spanning all continents.

Together with our local activists we have achieved a lot:

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  • We were the first to alert UNESCO about the destruction brought about by the Boko Haram terrorist group to the Sukur villages in northern Nigeria.

  • We have been able to provide information about the situation of World Heritage Sites in Libya, Syria and Gaza when these places were inaccessible due to armed conflicts.

  • We stopped the plans for gold mining in Russia’s Virgin Forests of Komi.

  • We have demonstrated that Tunisia misrepresented the state of conservation of the ancient site of Carthage in its official report to UNESCO, resulting in immediate changes in the management of the site.

  • We prevented a road that would have bisected the Iguacu National Park in Brazil.

  • In 2022, we were the first to send packaging materials to the Saint Sophia Cathedral and Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra so they could bring their sacred objects to safety from Russian attacks.

  • We have succeeded in significantly reducing the area covered with concrete on the Acropolis of Athens.

  • Our report that 20-30% of the buildings in Germany’s Old Town of Goslar are in disrepair has led to the rise of a citizens’ initiative which is challenging the municipalities’ management of its World Heritage.

  • We have made the Japanese government address damages to the Yambaru Forest in northern Okinawa due to US military exercises.

  • We have stopped the plans for a freeway tunnel underneath the megalithic site of Stonehenge in southern England.

  • We stopped the construction of a zip line from Rio de Janeiro’s Sugar Loaf Mountain.

  • We are the only organization who publishes information about the damages done to World Heritage Sites by Russia in the occupied territories of Ukraine, the first of which is now on the agenda of the World Heritage Committee.

  • Most importantly, however, World Heritage Watch has made civil society and indigenous peoples important players in UNESCO’s procedures to protect the World Heritage – it belongs to all of us and we have made it clear that it is ours.

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