It's a list as varied as the sites it contains: the Statue of Liberty, Angkor in Cambodia, the city of Verona in Italy.
These and hundreds of other sites make up the World Heritage List,
the most notable cultural, natural and historic landmarks around the
world. UNESCO -- the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization -- carefully selects the properties and they are protected
by the 40-year-old World Heritage Convention, ratified by 190
countries.
But this cultural and historic
legacy shared by the world is under threat. Of the 962 sites, 38 are
listed as "in danger," under siege by pollution, natural disasters,
uncontrolled urbanization, unchecked tourism or armed conflict.
Take, for example, what happened
in Syria just a few weeks ago. Amid intense fighting, a fire destroyed
hundreds of shops in the vast medieval souk, or marketplace, in Aleppo,
Syria's largest city. It's yet another casualty in the uprising that
began in March 2011 and has claimed more than 30,000 lives. The souk was
located in the old city of Aleppo, a World Heritage site, one of six in
Syria. Four others had already been damaged: the Crac des Chevaliers
castle, the old city of Damascus, the ancient villages of Northern Syria
and the ruins of Palmyra.
One of the most recent additions
to the "in danger" list is Timbuktu. Located in Mali in West Africa, the
site contains three large historic mosques, now threatened by
desertification and rampant urbanization.
UNESCO monitors not only the "in
danger" sites but also hundreds of others on the World Heritage List.
The Great Barrier Reef along Australia's northeast coast is the largest
coral reef ecosystem in the world. But it has lost more than half its
coral over the last three decades.
And UNESCO's own work is now
under threat. The United States last year cut off its funding, a
contribution that made up 22 percent of the organization's budget. The
cutoff was automatic. Congress passed laws in the early 1990s requiring
that funds be withdrawn from any United Nations body in which Palestine
was voted in as a full member.
This week, Christiane Amanpour
discusses the cultural and historical importance of sites on the World
Heritage List with Kishore Rao. He is the director of the organization's
World Heritage Center.