Badly planned development a threat to heritage sites

It urged companies to obey UN appeals to declare all heritage sites “no go” areas for oil and gas exploration, mines, unsustainable timber production and over-fishing. 

A total of 114 World Heritage sites out of 229 worldwide that are prized for nature or a mixture of nature and culture were under threat, according to the study by WWF and Dalberg Global Development Advisors, a US-based consultancy. 

“This is staggering. We’re trying to raise a flag here,” Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International, said. “We’re not opposing development,we’re opposing badly planned development.” 

The WWF findings are far higher than the 18 natural sites listed as “in danger”, a more severe condition, by the World Heritage Committee of the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO. 

The WWF rates the Great Barrier Reef, for instance, as under threat from mining and shipping, while last year, the Heritage Committee stopped short of an “in danger” listing. And the WWF says Machu Picchu in the Andes, also not on the UN list, is under threat from logging. 

Other sites under threat include the Everglades in the United States, Ecuador’s Galapagos islands or Russia’s Kamchatka volcanoes, it said. Of those, only the Everglades were rated “in danger” by the Heritage Committee.

The International Council of Mining and Metals, grouping major companies, agreed in 2003 to stay out of World Heritage sites. Some oil and gas companies, such as Total and Shell, have made similar commitments. The WWF study said that more than 11 million people depended on the heritage sites for food, water, shelter and medicine.