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FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT WATER AND THE NATURAL WORLD HERITAGE Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) seeks to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. This is embodied in an international treaty called the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted by UNESCO in 1972. What makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located. Los Glaciares National Park, located in southern Argentine Andes, was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1981. The park is the 3rd largest ice field in the world after Antarctica and Greenland. Gradually increasing in size for over 20,000 years the ice field now stretches from the mountains to the shore, forming a wall of ice over 10 meters high. The ice field provides Patagonia with abundant water and nature unique to the area. The Sundarbans mangrove forest, one of the largest such forests in the world (140,000 ha), lies on the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers on the Bay of Bengal, in Bangladesh, and was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1987. The site is intersected by a complex network of tidal waterways, mudflats and small islands of mangrove forests, and provides excellent example of ongoing ecological processes. The Central Amazon Conservation Complex in Brazil makes up the largest protected area in the Amazon Basin (over 6 million hectares) and is one of the planet's richest regions in terms of biodiversity. It was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 2000. This Complex includes an important sample of varzea ecosystems, igapo forests, lakes and channels which take the form of a constantly evolving aquatic mosaic that is home to the largest array of electric fish in the world. The site protects key threatened species, including giant arapaima fish, the Amazonian manatee, the black caiman and two species of river dolphins. The Pantanal Conservation Complex consists of a cluster of four protected areas with a total area of 187,818 ha. Located in western central Brazil, this World Heritage site since 2000, represents 1.3% of Brazil's Pantanal region, one of the world's largest freshwater wetland ecosystems. The Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is Africa's largest tropical rainforest reserve. Situated at the heart of the central basin of the Zaire river, the park is very isolated and accessible only by water. It was added to the World Heritage List in 1984. It is the habitat of many endemic endangered species, such as the dwarf chimpanzee, the Zaire peacock, the forest elephant and the African slender-snouted or 'false' crocodile. Lake Malawi National Park, located at the southern end of the great expanse of Lake Malawi, in Malawi, with its deep, clear waters and mountainous backdrop, is home to many hundreds of fish species, nearly all endemic. This site was added in 1984 to the World Heritage List. Its importance for the study of evolution is comparable to that of the finches of the Galapagos Islands. The Arabian Oryx Sanctuary is an area within the Central Desert and Coastal Hills biogeographical regions of Oman that was inscribed at the World heritage List in 1994. Seasonal fogs and dews support a unique desert ecosystem whose diverse flora includes several endemic plants. Its rare fauna includes the first free-ranging herd of Arabian oryx since the global extinction of the species in the wild in 1972 and its reintroduction here in 1982. The Puerto-Princesa Subterranean River National Park in the Philippines features a spectacular limestone karst landscape with an underground river. One of the river's distinguishing features is that it emerges from underground directly into the sea, and its lower portion is subject to tidal influences. The area also represents a significant habitat for biodiversity conservation. The site contains a full 'mountain-to-sea' ecosystem and has some of the most important forests in Asia. This national park was added to the World Heritage List in 1999. Situated in south-east Siberia, the 3.15-million-ha Lake Baikal, included in 1996 to the World Heritage List, is the oldest (25 million years) and deepest (1,700 m) lake in the world. It contains 20% of the world's total unfrozen freshwater reserve. Known as the 'Galapagos of Russia', its age and isolation have produced one of the world's richest and most unusual freshwater faunas, which is of exceptional value to evolutionary science. The Natural System of Wrangel Island Reserve in the Russian Federation, is located well above the Arctic Circle, has been part of the World Heritage List since 2004. It includes the mountainous Wrangel Island (7,608 km2), Herald Island (11 km2) and surrounding waters. The vast natural forest of Yellowstone National Park in United States covers nearly 9,000 km2. Yellowstone contains half of all the world's known geothermal features, with more than 10,000 examples. It also has the world's largest concentration of geysers (more than 300 geysers, or 2/3 of all those on the planet). Established in 1872, Yellowstone is equally known for its wildlife, such as grizzly bears, wolves, bison and wapitis. Carved out by the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon in United States is the most spectacular gorge in the world, with nearly 1,500 m deep. Its horizontal strata retrace the geological history of the past 2 billion years. There are also prehistoric traces of human adaptation to a particularly harsh environment. The Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls, between Zaire and Zimbabwe, are among the most spectacular waterfalls in the world. The Zambezi river, which is more than 2 km wide at this point, plunges noisily down a series of basalt gorges and raises an iridescent mist that can be seen more than 20 km away.
Information from: Source: UNESCO Water Portal, December 2005
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