UNESCO World Heritage natural sites barely represent less than one percent of the planet’s surface, yet they are home to more than a fifth of mapped species, including some 75,000 plants and 30,000 mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles.
Climate change and human action create threats to these sites, described by the director of World Heritage, Lazare Eloundou Assomo, as a last line of defense for biodiversity and many endangered species.
“The report that we present is a call to action, to go further in the protection of these sites, with concrete mitigation and adaptation measures, and support for the actors present in them,” Assomo stressed at a press conference,adding that safeguarding biodiversity is a great challenge in this century.
According to research, of the more than 100,000 species mapped in World Heritage sites, at least 20,000 fall into the threatened category.
Expert Tim Badman, director of the Heritage and Culture Program of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, urged correcting the underestimation of the importance of World Heritage sites in the face of the loss of a part of biodiversity they host, and considered the UNESCO report on the subject an opportunity to act through measures such as the incorporation into national plans for the protection of biodiversity.
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