Unesco adds 4 natural, 3 cultural sites to World Heritage List

 

Four natural sites and three cultural sites were added to the Unesco World Heritage List.

The natural sites added on Monday are the four islands with rich biodiversity in Japan; a coastal area of geo-diversity and bio-diversity in South Korea; part of the mountain ridge running down the Malay Peninsula in Thailand; and a corridor along the eastern coast of the Black Sea in Georgia, reports Xinhua news agency.

The three cultural sites are the Dutch Water Defence Lines; the Arslantepe Mound archaeological tell in Turkey; and the Colonies of Benevolence in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The World Heritage Committee of the Paris-based Unesco made the announcement during its 44th session held online and chaired from Fuzhou, China.

The four islands on a chain in the southwest of Japan, encompassing 42,698 hectares of sub-tropical rainforests, are entirely uninhabited by humans and have high bio-diversity value with a very high percentage of endemic species, many of them globally threatened and some having no living relatives anywhere in the world, the committee said. Read More