The Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park will be considered in new criteria to be nominated to the World Natural Heritage list and the Citadel of Ho Dynasty will be considered in a list of World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO, VietnamPlus reports.

The online newspaper was quoting Irina Bokova, general director of UNESCO, in UNESCO’s 35th World Heritage Committee Meeting in Paris on Tuesday.

 

The two Vietnamese sites will be considered together with 37 sites around the world such as Ningaloo Coast (Australia); Pendjari National Park (Benin, an extension of National Park of Nigeria); Wudalianchi National Park (China); Ancient Beech Forests of Germany (Germany, an extension of the Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians, Slovakia and Ukraine); Western Ghats (India); Harra Protected Area (Iran); Ogasawara Islands (Japan); Kenya Lake System in the Great Rift Valley (Kenya); Trinational Sangha (Congo, Cameroon, Central African Republic).

 

The meeting focused on preservation status of 169/911 world heritages which have been named as well as increasing challenges in preserving these sites on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention in 2012.

 

World heritages focus on the relationships between culture, nature and society as well as being significant elements to bolster communication, reconciliation, development and knowledge.

 

Currently, 151 countries out of 187 member countries of UNESCO have 704 cultural heritages, 108 natural heritages and 27 heritages of both culture and nature.

 

Bokova also called on countries who own world heritages to set strict and proper policies to manage and protect those valuable and irreplaceable sites.

 

She also warns while the number of recognized world heritages is increasing, the number of damaged heritage sites is also increasing. She said that 34 current world heritage sites are in a dangerous condition.