Two sites in Africa UAE's Faya Palaeolandscape inscribed on UNESCO World Heritage List

Paris, Jul 11 (PTI) Two cultural landscapes in the African continent and one ancient site in the UAE were on Friday inscribed on the coveted UNESCO World Heritage List.
     The decision was taken during the ongoing 47th session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) in Paris.
     UNESCO made the announcements about fresh inscriptions in a series of posts on X.
     "New inscription on the @UNESCO #WorldHeritage List: Diy-Gid-Biy Cultural Landscape of the Mandara Mountains, #Cameroon," it said.
     The Diy Gid Biy Cultural Landscape (DGB) is a set of sixteen dry stone sites distributed in seven villages in the Far North Region of Cameroon, according to the UNESCO website.
     The DGB sites are complexes of terraces and platforms spread over the Mandara Mountains mountain chain, which is shared between Cameroon and Nigeria. This site is classified as a national heritage site and has been on Cameroon's Tentative List since 2006 and revised in 2017, it says.
     "New inscription on the @UNESCO #WorldHeritage List: Mount Mulanje Cultural Landscape, #Malawi," the world body wrote in a separate post.
    The Mount Mulanje Biosphere Reserve is located in the south west of Malawi, near the border with Mozambique.
    "The Mulanje cedar (Widdringtonia whytei) found in the reserve is considered the national tree of Malawi and is highly valued for its use in silviculture and its contribution to socio-economic development. Its protection and sustainable use is of priority concern," according to the UNESCO website.
     The 47th session of the WHC is being held in Paris from July 6-16.
     "New inscription on the @UNESCO #WorldHeritage List: Faya Palaeolandscape, #UnitedArabEmirates," it said in another post.
     The Faya Palaeolandscape is located in the Central Region of the Emirate of Sharjah in the UAE.
     A total of 32 sites will be examined from July 11-13 with nominations from various countries, including India.
     While 30 nominations will be eventually evaluated for new inscriptions, two existing UNESCO World Heritage Sites will be evaluated for "significant modifications to the boundaries", a senior official of the world body said.
     On July 9, the World Heritage Committee had removed three African heritage sites -- in Madagascar, Egypt and Libya -- from the list of UNESCO sites in danger, acknowledging successful efforts to mitigate threats and restore their cultural and ecological integrity.
     UNESCO in a statement had said that these removals were the result of extensive efforts by states parties, with its support, to significantly reduce threats to these sites.
     The sites taken off the danger list are the Rainforests of the Atsinanana in Madagascar, Abu Mena in Egypt, and the Old Town of Ghadamès in Libya.
     In recent years, UNESCO has made "considerable and targeted efforts" to support its African Member States. Since 2021, three sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Senegal have also been removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger, it added.
     Director General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, in her address at the opening ceremony of the session on July 7, had said that in addition to the extension of a site in Africa, the current session will "propose for inscription of four African sites, including the first-ever nominations from two countries".
     "Since 2018, fifteen new sites across eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa have joined the World Heritage List, and that is without including the sites that may be inscribed this year," she had said.
     New nominations from Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Malawi would be examined at the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee, the UNESCO earlier said.
     'Maratha Military Landscapes', representing extraordinary fortification and military system envisioned by the Maratha rulers, is the nomination from India for the 2024-25 cycle.
     The 46th session of the WHC was held in New Delhi -- the first time India hosted the crucial meeting.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)