Friday, 26 June 2009

Dresden loses its World Heritage Site Status


Dresden is deleted from UNESCO’s World Heritage List
Thursday, June 25, 2009
"Every time we fail to preserve a site, we share the pain of the State Party," declared María Jesús San Segundo, the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Spain to UNESCO who is chairing the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee presently underway in Seville on Thursday.
The World Heritage Committee decided to remove Germany's Dresden Elbe Valley from UNESCO's World Heritage List due to the building of a four-lane bridge in the heart of the cultural landscape which meant that the property failed to keep its "outstanding universal value as inscribed."
Dresden was inscribed as a cultural landscape in 2004. The Committee said that Germany could present a new nomination relating to Dresden in the future. In doing so, the Committee recognized that parts of the site might be considered to be of outstanding universal value, but that it would have to be presented under different criteria and boundaries.
The 18th- and 19th-century cultural landscape of Dresden Elbe Valley stretches some 18 km along the river from Übigau Palace and Ostragehege fields in the north-west to the Pillnitz Palace and the Elbe River Island in the south-east. The property, which features low meadows, and is crowned by the Pillnitz Palace as well as numerous monuments and parks from the 16th to 20th centuries in the city of Dresden, was inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2006 because of the planned Waldschlösschen Bridge.
Dresden is only the second property ever to have been removed from the World Heritage List. The Oman´s Arabian Oryx Sanctuary was delisted in 2007.The 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee is meeting in Seville until 30 June. The Committee´s 21 members are reviewing the state of conservation of properties inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List and nominations for new inscriptions of cultural and natural sites on the List.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/522

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,471675,00.html

In a referendum of the people it was voted, by the people that the bridge was more important than the World Heritage Site Status.
A interviewee that I heard talking on Radio 4 said "We have not been able to vote in this part of the world and it is more important to the democracy to respect the wishes of the people than be a world heritage site".

http://www.bathheritagewatchdog.org/newark.htm

Meanwhile Bath has come under scrutiny. Nemesis knows more about Bath than I so I will leave her to have a say http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/06/dresden-stripped-of-world-heritage-site.html
http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/ .

Along with other problems in Bath. It seems that someone called Dyson had decided to put a hoover on the top of a building and that planning application has now been withdrawn. http://www.bath-preservation-trust.org.uk/
Nemesis warns of the long process that is Unesco.
BASICALLY IN COMMON SENSE LANGUAGE WHAT IS THE POINT IN NOT LOOKING AFTER A WORLD HERITAGE SITE.

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