World Heritage Review
n°73 – November 2014
http://whc.unesco.org/en/review/73/
World Heritage and our protected planet
The IUCN World Parks Congress meets every ten years, and its November 2014 meeting may prove to be a turning point for protected areas in offering and implementing solutions for the challenges faced by the planet.
Taken together, the national parks, reserves and designated protected areas of every kind (including the World Heritage natural and mixed natural/cultural sites) now cover 14 per cent of the land surface, and nearly 3 per cent of the seas and oceans. The principles of conservation they apply serve to perpetuate a precious biodiversity. The World Heritage List includes the world’s most outstanding protected areas in terms of biodiversity ecosystems and natural features, warranting the inclusion of World Heritage as a cross-cutting theme at the World Parks Congress. World Heritage sites are the litmus test for measuring success of the global protected area movement. At the same time, these sites have the potential to be a learning laboratory and a source of inspiration for protected areas.

This issue takes a look at the role of World Heritage in the conservation of protected areas worldwide, its contribution to the protection of wilderness areas globally, while examining how World Heritage can and does support species conservation. We look at how Indigenous peoples play an integral role in protected areas in Australia, and discuss the global conservation agenda and how World Heritage can be part of finding solutions to global challenges in an interview with Zhang Xinsheng, President of IUCN, and Ernesto Enkerlin Hoeflich, Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas.

The exceptional relevance of the 2014 World Parks Congress, in which World Heritage is an active participant, is primarily its global impact in helping to address the gap in the conservation and sustainable development agenda which should, in turn, prove beneficial to individual protected areas. For there is reason to hope that concerted action in this domain may give a much-needed impetus to issues of conservation and biodiversity worldwide, even beyond the range of the protected areas.