Published on 20 July 2011 - Updated 06 November 2017
Cet article date d'il y a plus de 13 ans
The World Heritage Committee has added 25 new sites to the UNESCO World Heritage list, most of them cultural sites (21) but also including 3 natural sites and 1 mixed site. The notion of “cultural landscape”, as an example of which Val de Loire took its place on the list in the year 2000, is very much to the fore in characterising these new sites. Causses et Cévennes, a cultural landscape exemplifying Mediterranean agropastoralism, is the 36th French site to be listed, and the prehistoric palafittic sites around the Alps the 37th, this latter being a transnational site concerning 6 countries.
Flickr CC : mpix46
The site covers 302,319 hectares in the south of the French Central Massif, constituting a landscape of mountains crisscrossed by deep valleys and representative of the relationship that exists between agropastoral systems and their biophysical environment, in particular with regard to its “drailles” or transhumance routes. The villages and large stone farmhouses standing on the deep terraces of the Causses bear witness to the organisation imposed by the great abbeys from the 11th century onwards. Mount Lozère, which is part of the site, is one of the last places where summer transhumance is still practised.
Kehrsiten (Suisse) / Flickr CC : Darkroom Daze
This multiple asset comprises 111 sites in and around the Alps containing the remains of prehistoric palafittic (i.e. on stilts) dwellings. Dating back to around 5000 to 500 BC, they are located on lakeshores, riverbanks and the edges of marshland. Only a few have been excavated, but those that have been have provided clues that give us a glimpse of what daily life must have been like in Alpine Europe during the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age, as well as yielding information on the way in which communities interacted with their environment.
Following the unfavourable opinion rendered by ICOMOS, France decided to postpone candidacy of Le Corbusier’s architectural and urban oeuvre until a later sitting of the World Heritage Committee. This particular asset is transnational and, alongside France, concerns Germany, Argentina, Belgium, Japan and Switzerland.
The Committee requested the French State to suspend projects for installation of wind farms in Saint Michael’s Mount bay until the impact that such projects would have on the value of this exceptional listed site has been assessed. UNESCO should be sending a team of experts to carry out such an assessment.
Thai Minister Suwit Khunkitti announced Thailand’s intention to denounce the World Heritage Convention following differences over the listed Preah Vihear Temple site, which is currently threatened by tensions between Thailand and Cambodia. Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, expressed her deep regret and encouraged the two countries to use the Convention as a tool for dialogue, conservation of world heritage, and sustainable development.
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L’équipe de la Mission Val de Loire.
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