More than 11 million people depend on listed sites to cover their needs, for health care and work
Currently, nearly a listed site on five hosts within its scope a hydrocarbon concession, despite the commitment from 2003 by some major mining and oil companies (including Shell, Total, Tullow) refrain from will conduct their business.
A fifth of listed sites, located in the marine environment, generally suffer from overfishing. In the Caribbean region especially, the decline of herbivorous fish leads to the predictable collapse of coral reefs, gradually covered with algae.
Unesco has reprimanded Australia about the Great Barrier Reef which is deteriorating at high speed
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has led the campaign based on the consulting firm Dalberg Global Development which intersected numerous data. The sites it considers most exposed correspond largely to those that Unesco has pinned its list of World Heritage in Danger, but not only.
Unesco, which has been advised of this campaign do not have the same latitude to bring states to account. Sometimes it calls to order a government, as it has been the case in recent months in Australia where the state of the Great Barrier Reef is deteriorating at high speed. But it’s hard diplomatically to take all front toward countries guilty of laxity of their unique heritage. They are the ones which ask the rankings of their natural reserves or a remarkable region. Yet, the situation is deteriorating. A large hydroelectric dam it, a permit concreting over there in the name of economic logic, it is a short-term vision that is required.
Yet “the protection of natural areas and ecosystems is not an obstacle to development, writes Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International. Instead, it goes in the direction of a sustainable and robust development that benefits over the long term in nature and humans and contributes to both social stability, economic growth and the well-being of everyone”.