The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has added seven new sites to its World Herritage List, according to a press release issued on 26 July 2021. Four of these sites have been added for their natural herritage: Amami-Oshima Island, Tokunoshima Island, northern part of Okinawa Island, and Iriomote Island (Japan), Getbol, Korean Tidal Flats (Republic of Korea), Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex (Thailand) and Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands (Georgia); while three have been added for the cultural significance: Arslantepe Mound (Turkey), Extension of Defence Lines of Amsterdam, henceforth to be known as Dutch Water Defence Lines (Netherlands) and the transnational site of Colonies of Benevolence (Belgium and Netherlands).
The Amami-Oshima Island, Tokunoshima Island, northern part of Okinawa Island, and Iriomote Island site emcompasses 427 km² of subtropical rainforests on four islands on a chain located in the southwest of Japan, the serial site forms an arc on the boundary of the East China Sea and Philippine Sea whose highest point, Mount Yuwandake on Amami-Oshima Island, rises 694 metres above sea level. Entirely uninhabited by Humans, the site has high biodiversity value with a very high percentage of endemic species, many of them globally threatened. The site is home to endemic Plants, Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, inland water Fish and Decapod Crustaceans, including, for example, the endangered Amami Rabbit, Pentalagus furnessi, and the endangered Ryukyu Long-haired Rat, Diplothrix legata, that represent ancient lineages and have no living relatives anywhere in the world. Five Mammal species, three Bird species, and three Amphibian species in the property have been identified globally as Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species. There are also a number of different endemic species confined to each respective island that are not found elsewhere in the site.
The Getbol Tidal Flats of Korea are situated in the eastern Yellow Sea on the southwestern and southern coast of the Republic of Korea, the site comprises four component parts: Seocheon Getbol, Gochang Getbol, Shinan Getbol and Boseong-Suncheon Getbol. The site exhibits a complex combination of geological, oceanographic and climatologic conditions that have led to the development of coastal diverse sedimentary systems. Each component represents one of four tidal flat subtypes (estuarine type, open embayed type, archipelago type and semi-enclosed type). The site hosts high levels of biodiversity, with reports of 2150 species of flora and fauna, including 22 globally threatened or near-threatened species. It is home to 47 endemic and five endangered marine invertebrate species besides a total of 118 migratory Bird species for which the site provides critical habitats. Endemic fauna includes Mud Octopus, Octopus minor, and deposit feeders like Japanese Mud Crabs, Macrophthalmus japonica, Fiddler Crabs, Uca lactea, and Polychaetes (Bristle Worms), Stimpson’s Ghost Crabs, Ocypode stimpsoni, Yellow Sea Sand Snails, Umbonium thomasi, as well as various suspension feeders like Clams. The site demonstrates the link between geodiversity and biodiversity, and demonstrates the dependence of cultural diversity and Human activity on the natural environment.
The Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex of Thailand is located along the Thailand side of the Tenasserim mountain range, part of a north-south granite and limestone mountain ridge running down the Malay Peninsula. Located at the cross-roads between the Himalayan, Indochina, and Sumatran faunal and floral realms, the property is home to rich biodiversity. It is dominated by semi-evergreen/dry evergreen and moist evergreen forest with some mixed deciduous forest, montane forest, and deciduous Dipterocarp forest. A number of endemic and globally endangered plant species have been reported in the property, which overlaps with two Important Bird Areas and is noted for its rich diversity of Birdlife, including eight globally threatened species. The lpcality is home to the critically endangered Siamese Crocodile, Crocodylus siamensis, the endangered Asiatic Wild Dog, Cuon alpinus, Banteng, Bos javanicus, Asian Elephant, Elephas maximus, Yellow/Elongated Tortoise, Indotestudo elongata, and the endangered Asian Giant Tortoise, Manouria emys, as well as several other vulnerable species of Birds and Mammals. Remarkably, it is also home to eight Cat species: the endangered Tiger, Panthera tigris, and Fishing Cat, Prionailurus viverrinus, near-threatened Leopard, Panthera pardus, and Asian Golden Cat, Catopuma temminckii, the vulnerable Clouded Leopard, Neofelis nebulosi, and Marbled Cat, Pardofelis marmorata, as well as Jungle Cat, Felis chaus, and Leopard Cat, Prionailurus bengalensis.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has acknowledged the World Heritage Committee’s decision to inscribe the Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex onto the World Heritage List, and the commitment expressed by the Government of Thailand to continue the work in progress relating to the site. The organisation has expressed willingness to support the Thai Government in its work with local communities and other concerned stakeholders to address the Committee’s decision, and uphold the World Heritage Convention’s own policies and high standards of conservation practice. However, it has also raised concerns about Human rights issues around the site which have yet to be resolved, in particular the need for indigenous Karen communities to provide their consent, and for their concerns to be resolved.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature further states that respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities in conservation is a clearly stated policy of the World Heritage Convention and is central to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature mission and values. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s membership, composed of government, civil society and indigenous peoples’ organisations, sets the policies that guide the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s wider work. In this regard, The International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Resolutions emphasise that nature conservation must respect the rights of indigenous peoples to the territories they have traditionally owned and used.
The Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands of Georgia site comprises seven component parts, within an 80 km long corridor along the warm-temperate and extremely humid eastern coast of the Black Sea. They provide a series of the most typical Colchic ecosystems at altitudes ranging from sea level to more than 2500 metres above it. The main ecosystems are ancient deciduous Colchic rainforests and wetlands, percolation bogs and other mire types of the distinct Colchic mire region. The extremely humid broad-leaved rainforests comprise a highly diverse flora and fauna, with very high densities of endemic and relict species, with significant numbers of globally threatened species and relict species, which survived the glacial cycles of the Tertiary. The site is home to approximately 1100 species of Vascular and non-Vascular Plants, including 44 threatened Vascular Plant species, and almost 500 species of Vertebrates, and a high number of Invertebrate species. The site also harbours 19 threatened Animal species including Sturgeon, notably the critically endangered Colchic Sturgeon, Acipenser persicus. It is a key stopover for many globally threatened Birds that migrate through the Batumi bottleneck.
Arslantepe Mound is a 30-metre-tall archaeological tell located in the Malatya plain, 12 km south-west of the Euphrates River in Anatolian Turkey. Archaeological evidence from the site testifies to its occupation from at least the 6th millennium BC up until the late Roman period. The earliest layers of the Early Uruk period are characterized by adobe houses from the first half of the 4th millennium BC. The most prominent and flourishing period of the site was in the Late Chalcolithic period, during which the so-called palace complex was constructed. Considerable evidence also testifies to the Early Bronze Age period, most prominently identified by the Royal Tomb complex. The archaeological stratigraphy then extends to the Paleo-Assyrian and Hittite periods, including Neo-Hittite levels. The site illustrates the processes which led to the emergence of a State society in the Near East and a sophisticated bureaucratic system that predates writing. Exceptional metal objects and weapons have been excavated at the site, among them the earliest swords so far known in the world, which suggests the beginning of forms of organized combat as the prerogative of an elite, who exhibited them as instruments of their new political power.
The Dutch Water Defence Lines represents a defence system extending over 200 km along the edge of the administrative and economic heartland of Holland. It is comprised of the New Dutch Waterline and the Defence Line of Amsterdam. Built between 1815 and 1940, the system consists of a network of forts, dikes, sluices, pumping stations, canals and inundation polders, working in concert to protect the Netherlands by applying the principle of temporary flooding of the land. It has been developed thanks to the special knowledge of hydraulic engineering for defence purposes held and applied by the people of the Netherlands since the 16th century. Each of the polders along the line of fortifications has its own inundation facilities.
The transnational Colonies of Benevolence encompasses four settlements; cultural landscapes with one colony in Belgium and three in The Netherlands. Together they bear witness to a 19th century experiment in social reform, an effort to alleviate urban poverty by establishing agricultural colonies in remote locations. Established in 1818, Frederiksoord (the Netherlands) is the earliest of these colonies and home to the original headquarters of the Society of Benevolence, an association which aimed to reduce poverty at the national level. Other components of the property are the colonies of Wilhelminaoord and Veenhuizen, in the Netherlands, and Wortel in Belgium. As the colonies’ small farms yielded insufficient revenues, the Society of Benevolence sought other sources of revenue, contracting with the State to settle orphans, soon followed by beggars and vagrants, leading to the creation of 'unfree' colonies, such as Veenhuizen, with large dormitory type structures and larger centralised farms for them to work under the supervision of guards. The colonies were designed as panoptic settlements along orthogonal lines. They feature residential buildings, farm houses, churches and other communal facilities. At their peak in the mid-19th century, over 11 000 people lived in such colonies in the Netherlands. In Belgium their number peaked at 6000 in 1910.
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