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World Heritage Marine Programme

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The mission of the World Heritage Marine Programme is to establish effective conservation of existing and potential marine areas of Outstanding Universal Value. To achieve this mission, our work focuses on three key goals:

  • Strengthen  the credibility of the World Heritage List. 
  • Strengthen conservation  and capacity building for marine World Heritage sites 
  • Strengthen communication and outreach about the World Heritage Convention as an instrument for marine conservation 
       

Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations. Today, 45 World Heritage sites are located in marine areas. They represent the most outstanding and valuable places in our marine environment. Their dissapearance would be an irreplaceable loss to humanity.

 

Toward a balanced, credible and representative World Heritage List

The operational guidelines of the World Heritage Convention call for a balanced, credible, and representative World Heritage List. Together with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other institutions, the World Heritage Marine Programme is working toward the development of a comprehensive planning basis for the identification of new marine sites with potential Outstanding Universal Value. Consistent the World Heritage Global Strategy, our work strives to ensure a balance among all major marine ecoregions of the world and a credible representation of all marine ecosystem types.

Major activities toward this end include:

 

Capacity building and conservation of Marine World Heritage sites

Inscription on the World Heritage List is only one step toward safeguarding marine heritage for future generations. Even though marine World Heritage sites are exceptional, multiple stressors are threatening their conservation. We are currently finalizing a threat and management gaps analysis among all marine World Heritage sites. The results will be available on this website end September 2011.

To tailor our capacity building efforts better to the needs of the site managers, all marine World Heritage site managers came together in Honolulu, Hawaii (USA) from 1-3 December 2010 to discuss their management challenges and good practices. The meeting is a first step toward building a stronger and well informed marine World Heritage site managers community. The report from the meeting is available here.

Other activities toward improving management capacity for conservation include:

  • Marine spatial planning training session in El Vizcaino, Mexico, 3-4 October 2011
  • Marine World Heritage site managers website on management good practices and success stories (launch foreseen end October 2011)

 

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