At its 32nd session (Quebec City, 2008), the World Heritage Committee discussed at length the issues related to the state of conservation of World Heritage properties. With Decision 32 COM 7B.129 (see Annex 1), it requested the World Heritage Centre to prepare an analytical summary of the state of conservation of the World Heritage properties discussed at the 32nd session (Quebec City, 2008) identifying trends, for distribution to the Committee members and discussion at the 33rd session in 2009.
Following discussions between the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies during their bi-annual meeting (Rome, September 2008), and consultation with the Chairperson of the World Heritage Committee, an analytical summary has been developed, based on a statistical analysis. The purpose of this preliminary analysis is to give the World Heritage Committee the possibility to see the different conservation processes together and also to encourage partners in World Heritage conservation to join forces in this analysis and in addressing the threats.
