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

29 May

• UNESCO and Chile Launch Ecotourism Training Project on Easter Island
  UNESCO’s Director-General, Koïchiro Matsuura, and the President of the Republic of Chile, Michelle Bachelet Jeria, presented today in Paris a joint training project for development and sustainable ecotourism, aimed at local communities in the Rapa Nui National Park, a site inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1995. To launch the project, financed by the Government of Japan, a declaration of intent was signed by Koïchiro Matsuura and the Chilean Minister of Education, Mónica Jiménez de la Jara. The project aims to develop tourism strategies that respect the outstanding universal value of the Rapa Nui National Park, for which the site was inscribed on the World Heritage List.

28 May

• Caribbean Capacity Building Programme (CCBP)
  The CCBP is a training programme on cultural heritage, available to all UNESCO Member States and Associated States in the Caribbean, a region that treasures 20 world heritage sites. The Caribbean Capacity Building Programme for the Cultural and Natural Heritage 2004-2014 was adopted by the World Heritage Committee and the World Heritage Center of UNESCO in 2004 and aims mostly at strengthening subregional capabilities with regards to the management and protection of its rich heritage while at the same time facilitate that the sites with exceptional universal value in the area are acknowledged as such. The programme is based, on the one hand, on the Global Strategy to draft a more balanced representative list, as adopted by the World Heritage Committee in 1994, and based also on the assistance provided by both the World Heritage Committee and the World Heritage Center to the Caribbean...

26 May

• World Heritage Committee to meet in Seville to inscribe new sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List
  The World Heritage Committee will consider requests for the inscription of new sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List when it meets for its 33rd session in Seville, Spain, from 22 to 30 June. During this year’s session - to be chaired by María Jesús San Segundo, the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Spain to UNESCO - 35 States Parties to the World Heritage Convention will present properties for inscription on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Three of those countries - Burkina Faso, Cape Verde and Kyrgyzstan - have no properties inscribed on the World Heritage List to date.

• (in French) Visite le 28 mai à l’UNESCO de la Présidente chilienne Michelle Bachelet
  La Présidente de la République du Chili, Michelle Bachelet Jeria, sera à l’UNESCO le 28 mai et signera avec le Directeur général de l’Organisation, Koïchiro Matsuura, une déclaration d’intentions concernant le projet « Renforcement des capacités en écotourisme durable de l’Ile de Pâques », qui sera mis en œuvre dans le Parc national Rapa Nui, inscrit sur la Liste du patrimoine mondial en 1995.

25 May

• International Meeting: Indicators of sustainable Conservation in World heritage Historical Centres
  The City of Havana (Cuba) received from April 22-24 relevant international experts from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, who discussed with mayors and authorities from 15 cities of the new world, including Old Havana, Trinidad, Cienfuegos and Camaguey (Cuban cities in the world heritage List), on the sustainable development indicators appropriate for the historical centers of Latin America, which have been inscribed as World heritage sites. Mayors, city and heritage authorities also participated in Spain. This action, developed by UNESCO Havana in close coordination with the World Heritage Centre, is framed within the follow-up of the meeting on Indicators of conservation initiated in the Colony of Sacrament and continued in Ubeda, Baeza, Seville and Paris over the past 3 years. Many of the aspects dealt with fall within the priorities of the World heritage Committee and the strategic objectives for the future of the World Heritage Convention of 1972.

• Expert Meeting: Nomination of Rock Art sites in Central Asia to World Heritage List
  This meeting, which is being held in France, will bring together several experts from different countries (Kazakhstan, Norway, Uzbekistan, Germany and France) as well as ICOMOS experts and the UNESCO Central Asia field offices representatives to discuss with the World Heritage Centre the draft Concept Paper of the World Heritage Nomination of the Rock art Sites in Central Asia...

• Call for Papers: "World Heritage and Cultural Diversity - Challenges for University Education"
  The UNESCO Chair in Heritage Studies at the Brandenburg University of Technology is pleased to host an International Conference on "World Heritage and Cultural Diversity - Challenges for University Education". The event is being co-organized by the German Commission for UNESCO, and the conference patrons are the UNESCO Word Heritage Centre and the Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs Germany. The conference aims to discuss in which way the different aspects of cultural diversity can be protected by international legal instruments and how such instruments may achieve this. Another aim is to connect a broad understanding of diversity with existing and future World Heritage sites.

15 May

• Business Skills for World Heritage Training Programme Launched
  The first World Heritage sites to participate in the Earthwatch "Business Skills for World Heritage" programme were selected today. A total of 9 site managers from Ujung Kulon National Park (Indonesia), Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park (Philippines) and Kinabalu Park (Malaysia) will join two Earthwatch training professionals and three Shell company business planning experts on an 11-day training and field research course at the Danum Valley Field Station on the island of Borneo, in Sabah Malaysia in October this year. Participants will be expected to develop the outline of a business plan during their stay at Danum, and over the course of the following year they will receive on-going support from the Shell business planning experts as they implement their plans.

13 May

• Bibliography: Sustainable Tourism Development in UNESCO Designated Sites

• UNESCO/NHK: World Heritage Site Documentaries
  The partnership between UNESCO and NHK Japanese broadcasting corporation builds on state-of-the-art digital visual and sound processing technologies for the production of short digital TV documentaries on Heritage using Hi-Vision technology as well as quality 3-D moving images and reconstruction images related to the World Heritage Sites. These videos have been edited and adapted by UNESCO especially for online access.

• [portuguese] VIDEO - Conheça os patrimônios da humanidade no Brasil
  Enquanto você acompanha no Fantástico a viagem de Zeca Camargo pelos patrimônios da humanidade no mundo, o Canal F mostra os patrimônios da Unesco aqui no Brasil.

12 May

• WHTour: 1001 Wonders - Simien National Park - Ethiopia
  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 271 sites have been visited : 250 are available on this web site, 21 are currently in post-production and will soon be uploaded. Altogether there are 2096 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.

• UNESCO’s World heritage Exhibition: the French sites
  From 13 June to 6 July 2009. Blois, France
  The library of the Abbé-Grégoire is closed Thursdays and Sundays. Free admission during the library’s opening times. From the cathedral of Vézelay to the latest French site listed: Le Havre, Jean-Jacques GELBART took approximately 500 photographs that valued the sites in UNESCO’s world heritage List. A selection of these magnificent photographs is displayed. An exhibition carried out by Jean-Jacques Gelbart, photographer author of the book UNESCO’s World heritage: the French sites, ED. Gelbart.

• New features this spring in the Val de Loire gardens
  With spring upon us, gardens have burst back into flower, but we can also see innovations and creations springing up too. An overview of la Chatonnière, the Domaine de Chaumont sur Loire and Valencay. On 10 April 2009, La Chatonnière (Azay-le-Rideau) officially opened the Jardin de la danse, an ephemeral garden of 40,000 narcissi and 4 branches climbing freely, which will decorate the south façade of the Renaissance château for two months. It blossoms before the spring only to disappear under a thick lawn in May. On this occasion, la Chatonnière won the Villandry Prize, awarded by Henri Carvallo, for the creation of its 12 gardens and restoration of its vegetable patch.

• Cave sculptures of Dazu – World Heritage Site (China)
  South-east of Chengdu and eighty kilometres west of Chongking, travellers can admire one of the most notable artistic places in China. Discovered during World War II and inaccessible to tourists until the 1980’s, the grottos of Dazu (Ta-tsou) were not object of a scientific report until 1959. Hidden in a magnificent mountainous steep territory, prove the last great impulse of Buddhist fervor in the China of the Song dynasty. The abundant dispersed statues in this region (near fifty thousand works) translates the intention of the Buddhist clergy to gain the town’s adhesion offering instead of the customary traditional pantheon of abstract divinities, closer figures, mentioning the works and the days of the farmers of that time.

11 May

• Vézelay 1979-2009: 30 anniversary of the inscription in UNESCO’s World heritage list
  In 1979, the basilica and hill of Vézelay were among the first five sites listed in France in the list of sites with exceptional universal value. In order to celebrate this anniversary in honor of the aesthetic and the cultural integrity of one of the most beautiful towns of France, Vézelay organizes a series of events, distributed in five stages. Vézelay’s heritage associates in a same place, architecture, history, preserved nature and spiritual dimension. From Sunday 12 April to Sunday 25 October, around twenty events will take place in harmony with the places on the topic “light, voice and stone”. During approximately 80 summer days and nights, concerts, exhibitions, excursions, spectacles, thematic visits will be offered… many of them free. The events are directed to the many visitors who come to Vézelay from all over the world.

6 May

• Registration deadline for the master's degree course "World Heritage at Work"
  The master's degree course "World Heritage at Work", offered by the University of Turin and the Polytechnic of Turin and organized by the International Training Centre of ILO in collaboration with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, is preparing for its second year. The programme is intended for professionals involved in the management of a World Heritage property and those who are associated with site activities.

• Advanced Course in World Heritage Conservation and Management - Application deadline 25 May 2009
  This Advanced Course is offered by the World Heritage Institute of Training and Research for the Asia and the Pacific Region (WHITRAP), under the auspices of UNESCO. It is intended for professionals, decision makers and practitioners (among others, government officials, site managers, scholars and independent consultants) with a background in World Heritage conservation and management. Applicants should have attained at least a bachelor degree in a related field of expertise and have a minimum of two years of related working experience.

5 May

• Sustainable Tourism Development in UNESCO Designated Sites in South Eastern Europe
  The training workshop on Sustainable Tourism Development in UNESCO Designated Sites in South-Eastern Europe is organized by the UNESCO Office in Venice (BRESCE), UNESCO World Heritage Centre (WHC), UNEP Regional Office for Europe (ROE) and the National Park Dolomiti Bellunesi, in co-operation with Ministry of Tourism and Environment Protection of Montenegro, National Commission for UNESCO of Montenegro, Durmitor National Park, UNDP in Montenegro and the Central European Initiative (CEI). The event is convened from 3 to 8 May in Podgorica and Zabljak, Durmitor National Park (NP) in Montenegro.