UNESCO World Heritage Committee meets in Bonn
Germany displays lasting commitment to UNESCO World Heritage mission.
The UNESCO World Heritage list contains more than 1,000 outstanding cultural and natural sites. And new ones are constantly being added. “We need such evidence to show where we come from and where we stand today,” stressed Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, when he handed over the official letter to the Monastery of Corvey in Westphalia newly appointing it to the famous list of world heritage sites. Germany has displayed lasting commitment to world heritage sites, both national and international, for more than 30 years. In the summer of 2015 Germany is hosting the World Heritage Committee for the second time. At its 39th session now being held in Bonn on the Rhine, the committee will decide which new places will be inscribed in the list. The 2015 nominations for sites in Germany include the old warehouse district, the Speicherstadt in Hamburg, Naumburg Cathedral and the medieval architecture on the rivers Saale and Unstrut.
German-Iraqi initiative for endangered cultural sites
As well as deciding the new additions to the list, the session will also be dealing with the topic of “Endangered World Heritage Sites”. This special list currently contains 46 places, including many in Syria and Iraq, where the Islamic State (ISIS) militant group is destroying important cultural objects and sites. At the end of May, on the initiative of Germany and Iraq, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution condemning the destruction of cultural heritage by members of ISIS. The resolution appeals to all states to take action against the smuggling of works of art in order to cut off at least one channel of finance for ISIS. Maria Böhmer, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office, said in New York: “Let us stand together against such barbarism. And let us speak out with a single voice – because without this cultural heritage we have no future.”
39th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee from 28 June to 8 July 2015 in Bonn
