The 31st World Heritage Committee's annual meeting started
Saturday to consider and approve over 40 new World Heritage site
nominations.
??
The 10-day conference will also review sites in danger, site
management and protection, and will acknowledge national tentative
lists for possible future World Heritage sites.
??
The opening session is chaired by Tumu te Heuheu, Paramount Chief
of Ngati Tuwharetoa, New Zealand's World Heritage representative
for the last 10 years.
??
Forty nominations for new world heritage sites will be debated
during this meeting.
??
Australia is nominating the Sydney Opera House. Japan will forward
its sacred Mount Fuji for the list of tentative candidates for
heritage status.
??
India is pushing for listing of the Red Fort, a magnificent
17th-century red stone structure in Delhi where mutinous soldiers
proclaimed the frail Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar as ruler of
India in May 1857.
??
The Diaolou (watchtower house) of Kaiping, Guangdong province, and
the Karsts in southern China, which is made up of the stone forest
in Yunnan province, Libo County in Guizhou province and Wulong
county in Chongqing city, are nominated by China for heritage
status.
??
New Zealand will not be putting forward any sites for nomination
but will be submitting a tentative list with eight sites.
??
Over 600 international delegates are expected to attend the
meeting.
??
In 1972, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) adopted the World Heritage Convention as a
way to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of
the world's most outstanding cultural and natural heritage
sites.
??
With 183 member countries and more than 800 sites, it is one of the
most widely supported United Nations' conventions.
(Xinhua News Agency June 25, 2007)