On 24 January 2011, three park guards and five soldiers were killed in a violent attack against one of the patrol vehicles of the Congolese Wildlife Authority (ICCN) in Virunga National Park. The park is one of five World Heritage sites in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. According to ICCN, the ambush took place around 10:00 am in Rutshuru in the region of North Kivu, about 100 km north ...

The University of the Netherlands Antilles is organizing a course on Caribbean Heritage in Curaçao from 21 to 25 March 2011 for Module 1 (Application of the World Heritage Convention) and from 28 March to 1 April for Module 5 (Management of Historic Cities). This course is for heritage professionals but also students, researchers, decision makers from the Caribbean ...

Applications Open for the Colorado State University Spanish Language Short Course on Protected Area Management.  6 July – 6 August 2011 Mayor información en español: http://warnercnr.colostate.edu/cpam-course-sp/ More information in English: http://warnercnr.colostate.edu/cpam-course/  Application deadline: February 18, 2011 For over 20 years, CSU has ...

At the invitation of the Congolese Government, the high-level meeting requested by the World Heritage Committee in 2007 (Christchurch 2007) was held with UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and Congolese Prime Minister Mr Adophe Muzito in attendance. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is home to exceptional biodiversity and five World Heritage sites: the Garamba, Kahuzi-Biega, Salonga and ...

A high-level meeting between authorities from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and UNESCO will take place in Kinshasa on 14 January to discuss ways of strengthening protection of the five DRC sites inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger. The meeting, organized by the Democratic Republic of Congo and UNESCO, will be chaired by the Prime Minister of DRC Adolphe Muzito ...

Two rhinos, a mother and a female calf, were translocated on 29 December from the Pobitora wildlife sanctuary to Manas wildlife sanctuary in western Assam, India under the Indian Rhino Vision (IRV) 2020 programme, along with WWF-India and the Assam Forest Department. With this, the rhino population in Manas, a site inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1985, has gone up to seven. The rhino ...

The World Heritage Centre welcomes the International Year of Forests.  With 104 WH sites recognized wholly, or in part, for their rich forest biodiversity, the WH Convention is the most effective intergovernmental convention for the in-situ conservation of forest biodiversity. Today, over 760,000 square kilometres  (nearly 300,000 square miles), or 1.5 times the surface area of ...

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre and Panasonic have released an online version of the World Heritage Calendar in five languages. It is available as a website, or as a downloadable stand-alone application or wallpaper. Featuring stunning photographs of 12 World Heritage sites, the calendar includes informative texts and interesting facts in English, Japanese, French, Chinese and Spanish. ...

Best Wishes from the World Heritage Centre 2011