In celebration of World Oceans Day, the World Heritage Centre is launching an iPhone app. This years’ Oceans Day theme “Youth: the Next Wave for Change” inspired the World Heritage Centre to go mobile. Of the 6,000 marine protected areas on the planet, only 45 are inscribed on the World Heritage List, the highest internationally recognized status for conservation. The app aims to increase visibility of these exceptional places and facilitate access to information about their outstanding value.

All over the world, thousands of organizations and individuals work at World Heritage sites on a day-to-day basis. The World Heritage Convention is a powerful tool to protect these precious places and has known fascinating successes in many of them over the past 40 years. With this iPhone app it becomes possible to have the information about them at hand. The iPhone app allows users to view videos of these places and their managers and to consult the decisions the World Heritage Committee has taken about the status of their conservation. Users can also learn about the World Heritage Convention and its potential to protect the most precious places in the ocean, and follow activities the World Heritage Centre undertakes to protect marine sites.

The app can be downloaded for free from the app store and will soon also be available for android compatible devices. The app is developed in partnership with the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas. The work has been made possible by the generous ongoing support of the Tides of Time partners and the government of Flanders.