organization:world heritage committee

Ethiopia, Kenya fail with Lake Turkana UNESCO world heritage site — Quartz Africa
▻https://qz.com/africa/1324511/ethiopia-kenya-fail-with-lake-turkana-unesco-world-heritage-site

https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/RTR2PTI3-e1531197628538.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1400

Over the years – despite annual exchanges between the World Heritage Committee, Kenya and Ethiopia – Ethiopia has not acted on the various requests issued by the Committee, continuing with development projects without conducting a strategic environmental assessment. The filling of Gibe III’s vast reservoir was completed in December 2016 and the full water demands and downstream effects of irrigation schemes are still not known.

Kenya too has been lax. It hasn’t implemented recommendations to deal with poaching, illegal fishing, and livestock grazing in the Lake Turkana National Parks.

For the last couple of years the committee has expressed regrets, included notes, and made requests from both countries, but there have been no decisions in tackling the lake’s threats.

In its most recent session, the committee warned that the Gibe III dam had already heavily disrupted the lake’s seasonal patterns, and that this would adversely affect the fish population and the livelihoods of local fishing communities.

As a result, it was declared that Lake Turkana National Parks’ outstanding universal values are in danger and it was decided that the site should be inscribed on the List of World Heritage in danger.

#Lac_Turkana #Grand_barrage #Gibe_III #plantations #Ethiopie #Kenya

Israel still outraged by new ’softened’ version of UNESCO resolution
▻http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=773732
Oct. 26, 2016 5:08 P.M. (Updated: Oct. 26, 2016 5:08 P.M.)

http://www.maannews.com/Photos/328114C.jpg

BETHLEHEM — A new version of a UNESCO resolution that strongly condemned Israeli policies in the occupied Palestinians territory was approved on Wednesday after widespread uproar from Israel and its supporters claimed that the previous text denied Jewish ties to the location of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem’s Old City.

The resolution was backed by ten World Heritage Committee members states, opposed by two, with eight abstaining.

However, Israeli media sites reported that the revised version continued to “ignore Judaism’s connection” to the holy site, as the text still only referred to the compound by its Arabic and Muslim names — Al-Aqsa or al-Haram al-Sharif — and not as the Temple Mount as it is known to Jews.

Amid the uproar, the issues raised in the resolution itself regarding several Israeli policies against Palestinians at the holy site have largely fallen to the wayside.

As a Palestinian representative to UNESCO put it after the initial text was approved, the resolution was “about occupation, not about a name,” asserting that the Geneva Conventions required the site be referred to by the name that predated Israel’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.

The wording of the new resolution was “softened,” according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, removing the term “occupying” force in regards to Israel, and now refers to the Western Wall by its Jewish name and not in quotations as it had been previously.

However, Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, reportedly said after the vote: “This is yet another absurd resolution against the State of Israel, the Jewish people and historical truth.”

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, also slammed the new resolution, saying, “UNESCO embarrassed itself by marching to the tune of the Palestinian pipers. All attempts to deny our heritage, distort history and disconnect the Jewish people from our capital and our homeland, are doomed to fail.”

#UNESCO

#Palestine Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir, inscribed on World Heritage List and on List of World Heritage in Danger | UN

▻http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/palestine_land_of_olives_and_vines_cultural_landscape_of_southern_jerusalem_battir_inscribed_on_world_heritage_list_and_on_list_of_world_heritage_in_danger/back/9597

Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir, inscribed on World Heritage List and on List of World Heritage in Danger

The World Heritage Committee today began the examination of 36 sites nominated for inclusion on the World Heritage List. The first property discussed was Palestine: Land of olives and vines, Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir, submitted by Palestine as an emergency nomination.

#Patrimoine