Information about WORLD HERITAGE & WILLEMSTAD

Havana, Cuba, one of the Caribbean family of World Heritage Cities

WORLD HERITAGE

What do the pyramids of Egypt and the Grand Canyon of Colorado have in common? Or the Taj Mahal, the Machu Pichu of the Incas in the Andes and the Ngorongoro Crater in East Africa? Without doubt very little, except that they are all monuments and sites whose splendor enriches each and every one of us. Their disappearance would thus be an irrepairable loss.

These monuments and sites are recorded together with many others on the World Cultural and Natural Heritage List. As many wonders of the past have disappeared, leaving no trace, there still remain in the world of today many more irreplaceable examples of unicity in the natural and man-made environment (tangible property) that can be considered of such universal value and interest that their preservation concerns us all.

The international "Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage" has as a primary mission to define the world-wide natural and cultural heritage by means of the World Heritage List. This convention was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO in 1972 and has now 158 State Parties, amongst others The Kingdom of the Netherlands that signed the Convention in 1992 particularly on request of the Netherlands Antilles, i.c. the Island Territory of Curaçao for its high interest in Historic Willemstad, through the "Action Willemstad".

The Convention thus assumes and affirms the existence of heritage which belongs to all mankind and it tries to define this shared heritage by drawing up the World Heritage List. 

(source: UNESCO World Heritage calendar / ICAW-archive 1999)

For more information see the World Heritage Web and the

Issued 1997 by ICAW