World Heritage – A call for action and finance to implement the GBF

From left to right: Guy Debonnet, Tim Badman, Laura Guillem, Raul Fontoura, Dries Desloover, Kenneth Felix Haczynski da Nobrega, Faig Mutallimov.

The World Heritage Convention aspires to conserve the planet’s most outstanding ecosystems, species, and natural phenomena. Over 270 of the most significant protected areas on Earth have already been recognized as natural World Heritage sites – from the highest mountain peaks, through forests, deserts, wetlands, and reefs.

Yet the World Heritage List is currently imbalanced. Areas of fundamental ecological importance with potential Outstanding Universal Value remain unprotected or under-protected, especially in the developing world, owing to the scarcity of funds or expertise needed for the establishment of protected areas, their management and the preparation of nomination files for possible inscription on the World Heritage List. Even sites already recognized, face great challenges.

Although World Heritage sites harbour more than 20% of mapped global species richness, only 50% of natural sites have effective protection and management overall, and sustainable finance emerged as the most recurring issue rated as of serious concern both in the 2017 and 2020 IUCN World Heritage Outlook. This signals that much more commitment is needed to adequately resource the protection and management of the world’s most precious and irreplaceable places.

The call for increased action and finance has taken on new momentum through a joint event hosted by IUCN and Brazil, with UNESCO, at the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee to explore what States Parties, UNESCO and IUCN, with their partners, can do to reinforce the contribution of the World Heritage Convention to global climate and biodiversity targets, and mobilise the finances needed for effective action. High-level representative speakers from Azerbaijan, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia and South Africa provided perspectives on the role of Word Heritage sites in the conservation of biodiversity.

Key recommendations made during the discussion include:

• States Parties should explore new innovative financial mechanisms and multilateral cooperation for World Heritage;

• States Parties should invest in the integration of World Heritage into global conservation strategies, and the CBD COP16 and UNFCCC COP29 might provide an opportunity to discuss further.

IUCN is available to support States Parties in mobilizing action and finance for World Heritage, including through its IUCN World Heritage Strategy. IUCN also supports resource mobilization from a broad spectrum of donors including the GCF (for which IUCN is an accredited GCF-Accredited Entity) and GEF (for which IUCN is one of 18 GEF Agencies). If you are interested to learn more, please write to [email protected].

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