2009 - Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun - Jul - Aug - Sep - Oct - Nov - Dec

2008 - Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun - Jul - Aug - Sep - Oct - Nov - Dec

2007 - Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun - Jul - Aug - Sep - Oct - Nov - Dec

27 February

• Bridge Collapses at Hampi World Heritage Site (India)
  On 22 January 2009, the Anegundi Bridge at the World Heritage Group of Monuments at Hampi collapsed, killing eight construction workers. The unfinished bridge over the Tungabhadra River gave way under the weight of the additional concrete used to complete its construction, only weeks after resumption of the works which had been halted over 9 years ago.

• Devastating fire at the Royal Palaces of Abomey (Benin)
  The Royal Palaces of Abomey in Benin were ravaged by a fire on 21 January 2009 which destroyed several buildings. A brushfire, whose origins are still uncertain, consumed the straw roof and framework of six buildings enclosing two temples to Agasu, as well as the tombs of King Agonglo, King Ghezo, and each king's 41 wives. The fire moved quickly due to the strong harmattan winds which are currently blowing in the area.

• Jaeger-LeCoultre watch to be auctioned for World Heritage preservation
  In the context of the partnership between Jaeger-LeCoultre, The International Herald Tribune and UNESCO, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Manufacture has designed a watch symbolizing its commitment to the World Heritage Marine Programme.

• Jean-Michel Jarre becomes Artistic Director of the World Sky Race
  UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Jean-Michel Jarre has agreed to become the Artistic Director of the World Sky Race launched in a partnership between the nongovernmental U.S.-based World Air League and UNESCO's World Heritage Centre. The aim of the World Sky Race is to promote environmental protection and the use of lighter-than-air skyships as a means to reduce pollution and pressures caused by transportation.

• Joint efforts for the preservation of World Heritage in Mozambique
  Dutch and the Flemish Governments join Japan, UCCLA and Portugal in financing the San Sebastian Fortress rehabilitation project. On 18 December 2008, the Government of Mozambique and UNESCO signed two plans of operation for projects funded by the Netherlands and Flanders Funds-in-Trusts supporting the rehabilitation of the San Sebastian Fortress. Since its inscription on the World Heritage List in 1991, Ilha de Moçambique has suffered continuous decay to the extent that today many buildings are threatened with collapse. Therefore, the international community has been called upon to support the State Party in its efforts to preserve its World Heritage.

24 February

• The Director-General visits Santiago de Chile and the Easter island
  Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, visited on February 9, 2009 Santiago de Chile, where he was received in the Palacio de La Moneda by the President of the Republic, Michelle Bachelet. He was accompanied by Pilar Armanet, extraordinary and plenipotentiary Ambassador in France and permanent Delegate before the UNESCO, as well as by the Vice-minister of foreign affairs, Alberto Van Klaveren Stork.

23 February

• PDF De-Mining the Bamiyan Valley, Afganistan, with UNESCO
  Form September to November 2008, Sorna KHAKZAD worked as a representative of UNESCO in Bamiyan, Afganistan, as part of the UNESCO Support to the Action Project. The cultural landscape and archaeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley - including eight main sites of Bamiyan Cliff including the niches of three Buddhas, Shahr-i-Gholghola, the Kakrak Valley caves including the niches of the standing Buddha, the Qoul-i Akram Caves and Kalai Ghamai Caves in Fuladi Valley, Shar-i Zuhak, Qallay Kaphari A and B - has been registered as a World Heritage Site at the list of UNESCO in 2003 considering the criteria i,ii,iii,iv, and vi. In the same year this site has been included in endangered monuments list of UNESCO.

• PDF Art Nouveau buildings under restoration in Brussels
  As every year, on 24 November 2008 the first-year students received a guided tour to the Horta buildings in Brussels, which are today under restoration. Barbara Van der Weem architect in charge of the restoration projects since 1990 and Professor at the RLICC gave explanations on the preliminary research, the restoration strategies and specific conservation issues on the site.

• Mayors&Heritage: Krakow (Poland)
  Prof. Jacek Majchrowski, World Heritage City Mayor of Krakow (Poland)
  Lawyer, professor of law sciences at the Jagiellonian University (Uniwersytet Jagiellonski), historian of political and legal doctrines. A specialist in the field of the Second Republic of Poland, documenting its history, particularly the activities of right-wing parties. Deputy Chairman of the State Tribunal during its previous term of office, at present - judge of the State Tribunal.

• Artist for Peace Ms Missa Johnouchi supports World Heritage
  On 23 January 2009, Artist for Peace Ms Missa Johnouchi met with Mr Francesco Bandarin, Directer of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, to present a donation for the preservation of World Heritage sites. The funds, collected during the "World Heritage Torch-Run Concert - A voyage of the heart on the Silk Road from France to Japan" organized by the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan, will be added to the World Heritage Fund and used to finance activities for the protection of World Heritage.

• 2008-2009 World Heritage map now available
  The latest version of the World Heritage map, produced by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and National Geographic Maps with support from the United Nations Foundation, can now be ordered for a modest fee from the World Heritage Centre website. All proceeds from sales of the maps will go toward the preservation and promotion of World Heritage sites.

• 1001 wonders : The "company town" of Crespi d'Adda in Italy
  1001wonders.org (formerly world-heritage-tour.org) is listing 1001 cultural and natural sites around the world and is documenting them in panophotographies - immersive and interactive panoramic images. Today 269 sites have been visited : 239 are available on this web site, 30 are currently in post-production and will soon be uploaded. Altogether there are 2036 panophotographies. This project is building a museum atlas which is interactive, immersive, without border and for educational purposes. It is also a testimony and a documentary inventory of natural and cultural sites to future generations.

13 February

• Tourism Information Visa, the latest Libres Savoirs Visa
  The Tourism Information Visa, a short, simple, practical and free training course, allows residents to acquire the basic skills needed to welcome, communicate with and advise foreign tourists visiting the Centre region. The basic Libres Savoirs Visas are training courses funded by the Regional Authority, with the assistance of the European Social Fund, which are freely available and free of charge for everybody (adults and young people aged 16 and over who are no longer in education).

• Laboratories and research teams “Rivers and heritage”
  The Val de Loira Mission has an online directory with laboratories and search teams of the higher education and investigation institutions of the Val de Loira, from Orleans to Nantes, whose investigations deal with the topic “Rivers and heritage”. This directory will increase and will be updated regularly. In addition, it will be translated into English to foster the dissemination abroad of the information on the research on the Val de Loira.

• Submission of the Vitour II dossier: “VITOUR landscapes” Val de Loira Mission (France)
  The VITOUR landscapes project follows a first project (July 2005 to December 2007) in which the Loira Valley was the leading figure: Mission Val de Loira, in partnership with Interloire, the Loira wines inter-professional body. The first project, developed with European INTERREG IIIc funding, focused on enhancing winemaking landscapes by developing cultural wine tourism. It led to the signature of the International Declaration of World Heritage Vineyards which founded the international VITOUR network and committed the seven partner sites and their regions to bringing the network to life. For the new project, the partnership has been extended to 11 partners. An international consultant, Stephan Moritz, has been appointed to produce the candidacy dossier in collaboration with Karine Kubler, an independent landscape architect, responsible for development issues at the Upper Middle Rhine Valley (Rhine Gorge) site, Claudia Schwarz, Director of the site's UNESCO House and Thomas Jhost, Regional Director of Tourism. The project comes under priority 2 for INTERREG IVc funding: “the environment and risk prevention”.

12 February

• World Heritage Volunteers
  World Heritage Volunteers "Patrimonito rolls up the sleeves" Specific international volunteer projects organised around the theme of World Heritage. The initiative aims to provide opportunities and tools to sensitize youth organisations and groups to World Heritage, operating in the sphere of non-formal education in general and using voluntary service as a method in particular. It is jointly coordinated by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and the Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service (CCIVS).

• The Silk Road: An AMNH/UNESCO World Heritage Expedition through Central Asia
  Discover the rich history of the Silk Road on a guided visit to six World Heritage sites from April 12 to 27, 2009. The American Museum of Natural History, in partnership with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, is offering an exciting and informative program to the oasis cities of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan accompanied by archaeologist and early Silk Road scholar, Dr. Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu. Highlights include Samarkand, Merv, Khiva and Itchan Kala.

10 February

• PDF WHITR-AP - Mid-Term Strategy 2008-2013
  The WHITR-AP is a non-profit organization specialized in the area of heritage conservation. Furthermore, as a category 2 institute under the auspices of UNESCO, it is the first one that established in the developing countries. It will be an autonomous institution at the service of Member States and Associate Members of UNESCO. The Institute’s mission is to strengthen implementation of World Heritage Convention in the Asia and the Pacific region, by building the capacity of all those professionals and bodies involved with World Heritage site inscription, protection, conservation and management in the Asia and the Pacific region, through training, research, the dissemination of information and network building.

6 February

• 1001 wonders : Rock drawings in Valcamonica, Italy
  1001wonders.org (formerly world-heritage-tour.org) is listing 1001 cultural and natural sites around the world and is documenting them in panophotographies - immersive and interactive panoramic images. Today 269 sites have been visited : 239 are available on this web site, 30 are currently in post-production and will soon be uploaded. Altogether there are 2036 panophotographies. This project is building a museum atlas which is interactive, immersive, without border and for educational purposes. It is also a testimony and a documentary inventory of natural and cultural sites to future generations.

4 Febraury

• Reflection on the election system of the members of the World Heritage Committee - UNESCO Headquarters, Paris. 10 February 2009

• Galle Literary Festival is back
  The Galle Literary Festival 2009 opens in the salubrious setting of the Martin Wickremasinghe Museum; home of author the late Martin Wickremasinghe, one of Sri Lanka’s best known literary giants. The event begins with Tissa Abeysekera: writer, film director and arts critique paying homage to Martin Wickremasinghe, followed by an introduction to new Sri Lankan English writing by Romesh Gunasekera. Writers visiting from abroad and making contributions include Germaine Greer, Edna O’Brien, Tarun Tejapl, Pico Iyer, Moses Isegawa, Thomas Keneally, M J Akbar and Colin Thubron.

• UNESCO Proclaims World heritage part of the historical Center of Camaguey
  The oldest area of the urban historical center of this city was proclaimed Cultural heritage of the Humanity by UNESCO, in recognition for its exceptional values. For the proclamation ceremony, Herman Van- Hoof representative of UNESCO in Cuba and regional director of Culture for Latin America and the Caribbean traveled to the City. Van- Hoof read a message of congratulations from the general director of UNESCO to the government of Cuba, the authorities and the people of Camaguey, and presented the certificate of inscription to Andrés Morales Leal, Chairperson of the Municipal Assembly of the Popular Power, who discovered the corresponding commemorative plaques with José Rodríguez Barreras, director of the Office of the Historian of the city of Camaguey.

2 February

• Meeting of the Office of the French Association of world heritage properties (ABFPM)
  A meeting of the Office of the ABFPM was held in Saint Emilion on January 26, 2009 on the occasion of the opening of the celebrations of its 10 years since the inscription of this place in the World Heritage List. Both Ministries in charge of Ecology and Culture confirmed their total support to the activities of the Association, with their long term objective to integrate in their policies a specific attention for the world heritage properties. Several topics were approached such as the life of the association, the publication of the Michelin guide on the French world heritage sites and the creation of a logo. The proceedings the office will be soon available.

• Acceptance by Cook Islands of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (Paris, 16 November 1972)
  On 16 January 2009, Cook Islands deposited with the Director-General its instrument of acceptance of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. In conformity with its Article 33, the Convention will enter into force, with respect to Cook Islands, three months after the deposit of this instrument of acceptance, that is to say on 16 April 2009.

• Riga, Latvia: Project monitoring - FRANCE AGREEMENT - UNESCO (CFU)
  As a result of the meetings and missions between the cities of Riga, Lyon and Bordeaux, it is expected to revise the possible consequences of a co-operation project between these three cities. This project would deal in particular with the development of the district of Riga called “Moscow”. This district, in the middle of a process of reconstruction and urban change, is located on one of the axes of the entrance to the city and is characteristic of the old suburbs; it presents an interesting ordinary urban heritage, formed by wood and brick buildings. The urban morphology, the facilities, the public spaces have not changed practically and can be object of a reflection on the urban change of an economically fragile district.

• Support to the elaboration of a handbook of good practices on the urban conservation, in collaboration with the OWHC (Organization of World Heritage Cities)
  Within the framework of the elaboration of a handbook of good practices on urban conservation (see previous newsletters), a monitoring Committee met on the 4th of December in Strasbourg, on the occasion of the regional meeting of the OWHC. The calls for the participation of the member cities of the association were sent in September and provided the topics to analyze: ten contributions were already collected and other seven are awaiting information. Taking into account these contributions, it is expected to reactivate the call of proposals to ensure a better geographic representativeness.

• “Ancient cities of the north of Syria”: Submission of the expedient for the World Heritage Center
  The appointment expedient for the ancient cities of the north of Syria was submitted in the World Heritage Center at the end of January to be considered by the World Heritage Committee in its 2010 session. The work adopted by the Syria authorities and accompanied within the framework of the CFU allowed to finish the proposal of a cultural landscape, the first in Syria (and the second in the Arab countries), through the selection of eight archaeological parks on the complex of the calcareous massif of north Syria. A complement is being prepared on the management system that will have to be applied to this territory and which will have to be object of an Annex to the record within the next eight next months.

• “Niger - Loira: Governance and Culture”. Project financed by the European Commission
  The project “Niger-Loira: Governance and Culture” continues in Mali:
  • The inventory of the tangible and intangible heritage linked to the river was launched in December 2008 in Djenné, Mopti and Ségou. Mr. Jean Davoigneau (DAPA) and Mr. Marc Heller (photographer) contributed to the training of the researchers. An experimental wiki platform was set up and allowed to return in cartographic format the first results of the project and download research cards
  • The annual monitoring Committee of the project was held on 11 and 12 of December in Bamako.

  Both specialization modules “Heritage management” and “Management of the Environment and aquatic means” are under preparation. They will be given with experimental character around the beginning of February and mid March, 2009.
  The anthropological investigations on the cultures of the river (carried out by the Faculty of Letters and Social Sciences of the University of Bamako) will begin in February 2009.