Environmentalists call for protection of World Heritage Sites

The World Heritage Committee will today discuss issues relating to the conservation of environmental World Heritage Sites in the face of increasing concern over global warming. An international coalition of environmentalists and lawyers are urging the Committee, who are holding their annual meeting, in Lithuania, this week, to take urgent action to protect sites such as Mount Everest and Great Barrier Reef from future environmental threat. The World Heritage Convention legally requires all countries to pass sites listed under the convention intact to future generations but there is concern that unless the threat of climate change is properly addressed and preventative measures enforced, precious Heritage sites will be allowed to degenerate and their impact lost forever. Campaigners are calling for the Committee to ensure that countries who have signed up to the World Heritage Convention significantly cut their greenhouse gas emissions as part of their duty to protect World Heritage Sites for the future and for qualified observers to be sent to visit each petition site in order to evaluate the nature and extent of the threats and propose measures to be taken to limit them.