June 2011: The June 2011 “Monthly Focus” publication from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) highlights a meeting to add more sites to the World Heritage List, as well as efforts underway to save current World Heritage Sites and their biodiversity and cultural resources. The sites include East Africa’s Serengeti National Park, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Pyramids of Egypt and the sanctuary of Machu Picchu in Peru.

The latest sites to be added to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s World Heritage List will be announced at a meeting of the World Heritage Committee, taking place in Paris, France, from 19-29 June 2011. A total of 42 sites will be considered for inscription. IUCN also will report back on monitoring missions it conducted to 19 World Heritage Sites in 2010 and 2011, and will recommend that those under threat be inscribed on the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger.

The newsletter emphasizes that being included on the World Heritage List does not mean the site is going to be conserved and managed aptly. For example, road building, invasive alien species (IAS), wildfires, poaching and human-wildlife conflicts are creating many challenges for Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. Leo Niskanen, IUCN’s Office for Eastern and Southern Africa (ESARO), notes that these challenges come from outside the borders of the protected area and have an impact on the entire Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. He suggests that close collaboration between protected area managers in Tanzania and Kenya, and involving a broad group of stakeholders are critical. [Publication: IUCN Monthly Focus: Simply the Best?]