5.1 World Heritage Convention & Protected Areas

EPBC Act & Matters of National Environmental Significance

  • The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act is Australian legislation that enacts international environmental agreements into domestic law, ensuring their legal enforcement within Australia.

  • World Heritage properties are among the nine Matters of National Environmental Significance in Australia, highlighting their importance and the legal protection afforded to them under the EPBC Act.

Focus

  • The lecture series will provide a comprehensive analysis, starting with international environmental law aspects and transitioning to domestic implementations and challenges.

Sources of Law

  • Protected Areas (PAs) are a critical tool for conservation.

  • International Environmental Law provides a framework of treaties and agreements.

  • World Heritage Convention (1972) serves as a primary focus, illustrating the intersection of cultural and natural heritage protection.

  • Exploring operational conundrums and academic literature enriches understanding.

The UN and Protected Areas

  • The United Nations has been a key advocate for establishing and promoting protected areas (PAs) to conserve biodiversity in situ for over 70 years.

  • Protected areas have evolved into a significant global industry with substantial economic impact.

International Environmental Law Treaties

  • Convention on Biological Diversity focuses on the conservation of biological diversity.

  • Ramsar Treaty provides a framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.

  • Convention Concerning the Protection of the World's Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972) secures the preservation.

World Heritage Convention (1972)

  • The World Heritage Convention links nature and cultures.

  • It also highlights the importance of maintaining that relationship.

Definition of Heritage

  • Heritage is identified as both cultural and natural.

  • The definition includes intergenerational equity which means passing heritage to future generations.

History of the Convention

  • The Aswan Dam threatened the Nebiyah monuments in Egypt in the 1940s and 1950s.

  • Over 50 countries donated millions of dollars to move the monuments.

  • UNESCO released a podcast on the history of the Nabiyya campaign.

International Solidarity

  • Saving the monuments demonstrates international solidarity.

  • It gave rise to the concept of heritage belonging to everybody

Triggering Other Campaigns

  • Besides saving the temples, the effort triggered saving Venice

  • Also, the Borobudur Temple Compound in Indonesia was saved.

UNESCO and ICOMOS

  • UNESCO and ICOMOS drafted the convention

  • The IECN also made similar calls for protecting natural heritage.

  • The two movements merged into the World Heritage Convention.

Adoption and Ratification

  • The convention was adopted in 1972 and opened for signature on November 16, 1971.

  • Reference: United Nations Treaty Service, 1037 UNTS 151.

  • It entered into force on December 17, 1975, after ratification by 20 state parties.

  • The convention is a unique international treaty linking nature conservation and cultural properties and recognizing their interconnection.

Key Components of the World Heritage Convention

  • World Heritage List in Danger increases international attention.

  • World Heritage Fund helps parties with World Heritage properties.

  • Operational Guidelines which were developed by the World Heritage Committee is for monitoring and reporting.

  • The first site on the list was Ecuador's Galapagos Islands.

Convention Text: Articles 1 and 2

  • Article 1: Cultural heritage includes monuments, groups of buildings, and sites.

  • Article 2: Natural heritage includes natural features, geological and physiographical formations, and natural sites.

Types of Heritage

  • Natural

  • Cultural

Implementation of Protection

  • Properties are placed on a World Heritage List.

  • Signatories must create tentative lists of World Heritage properties.

  • Each year, a property is nominated for inclusion on the list.

  • The World Heritage Committee maintains and publishes the World Heritage List.

  • The property must have outstanding universal value (OUV).

World Heritage List Statistics

  • Today, there are 1,223 properties on the list.

  • 49 are transboundary.

  • 168 state parties are signatories.

  • Properties are concentrated in Europe.

  • There is underrepresentation in Oceania.

  • The World Heritage Committee recognizes this issue.

Examples of World Heritage Properties

  • Great Barrier Reef (Australia): Inscribed in 1981.

  • Mount Fuji (Japan): Listed in 2013.

  • Redwood National and State Parks (USA): Inscribed in 1980.

  • Yosemite (USA): Inscribed in 1984.

  • Ankor Archaeological Park (Cambodia): Put on the List in Danger in 1992.

Nomination to List Process

  • State parties develop tentative lists and create nomination portfolios.

  • These are submitted to the World Heritage Committee by February 1st each year.

  • The World Heritage Centre assesses the nominations.

  • International organizations (ICOMOS, ICCROM, IUCN) conduct evaluations.

  • Global experts are consulted, reports are made, and evaluations are compiled.

  • The committee meets annually in July to make decisions on listing.

Advisory Bodies

  • IUCN (natural properties)

  • ICOMOS and ICCROM (cultural properties)

  • These bodies can reject nominations in their reports.

  • Recently, only fully positive nominations are being accepted by the committee, which is controversial.

Outstanding Universal Value (OUV)

  • A property must be of outstanding universal value to be on the World Heritage List.

Management Requirements for OUV

  • Paragraph 97: Properties must have adequate long-term legislative, regulatory, institutional, and/or traditional protection and management to ensure their safeguarding.

  • This protection should include adequately delineated boundaries.

  • States parties must demonstrate adequate protection at the national, regional, municipal, and/or traditional level.

  • Paragraph 98: Legislative and regulatory measures should assure protection from social, economic, and other pressures that might negatively impact the OUV.

Boundaries and Buffer Zones

  • Paragraphs 99 and 101: Delineation of boundaries is essential for effective protection.

  • Boundaries should reflect the spatial requirements of habitats, species, processes, or phenomena that provide the basis for their inscription.

  • Boundaries should include sufficient areas immediately adjacent to the areas of outstanding universal value.

  • Buffer zones should be provided wherever necessary for the proper protection of the property.

Obligations of Protecting World Heritage Properties

  • Procedural: Information gathering, reporting, and submission of data and material.

  • Substantive: Implementing and reframing implementation; compliance issues.

Implementation of World Heritage Protection

  • Text, operational guidelines, and decisions make up how World Heritage Protection is implemented and operationalized.

  • There are procedural and substantive elements within these decisions.

  • Implementation happens at the national level and needs to be enacted at the local level.

Case Study: Angkor Archaeological Park, Cambodia

  • Put on the World Heritage List in Danger in 1992 after Cambodia signed and ratified the convention in 1991.

  • A listing was imposed that was completely incongruent with what was going on on the ground.

  • There were signs put up saying what you can and can't do, including fishing in their trepion, some of the farming practices, the types of buildings they put up, etcetera.

Local Perspectives

  • There was very little input to the content or the extent of those restrictions.

  • The human dimension and the costs of this incongruity are very rare.

  • Tenure is not secure because all of the red zone land became state land.

  • When tenure becomes insecure, that has flow-on effects for your assets.

  • Intergenerational living conditions and the customs were compromised, completely tone-deaf to how people were actually living.

  • Home demolitions and enormous fines were imposed on people who were breaching these rules.

Boundaries and Buffer Zones in Practice

  • The boundaries are not marked on the landscape.

  • There is a significant lack of data about how effective they are.

  • Local perspectives are absolutely essential in getting that nuance that's required for compliance with the law as we implement it.

  • We need to understand how the locals live and use and value the landscapes.

  • There are multiple jurisdictions within multiple, it is a legally plural landscape with multiple overlays.

  • International, national, provincial, district, and commune regulatory regimes all in one place, which really leads to enormous complexity and breaching of the laws.

Freezing Landscapes

  • Protecting heritage is like environment protection, which is part a matter of value and judgment.

  • International heritage law should be implemented and forced, having the needs of the environment in mind.

  • The presence of communities or any human action is more often than not seen as an interference with the environment.

Problems with the Laws

  • Some of the problems that we see in our landscapes are because of the way that the laws were originally drafted.

  • When the World Heritage Convention was being drafted, it was originally the proposal of two separate arms of UNESCO.

  • The two projects were ultimately merged, but the merger of culture and nature was never complete.

Landscape and Law

  • Legal rules shape the landscape, and the landscape shapes the culture from which the rules emerge.

  • Environmental regulation is complex.

  • What lies behind environmental law is this mix - this layering international, national, and local environments layering.

Ideals of Protection and Conservation

  • These are informed and embedded in ESD (ecologically sustainable development).

  • Precautionary principles, intergenerational equity (is a big one for the World Heritage Convention), and participation.

  • It's about the law because that sets out the regime.

  • It's about the science. We need that, too, because that's the dominant conservation paradigm, but it's also about the people who live, work, and play in these areas.

Summary

  • PAs (Protected Areas)

  • International Environmental Law

  • World Heritage Commission

  • Understand the role of the technical advice, understand that broad screen schema for how we're protected, and then think about the challenges.