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World Heritage and Mountain Sites

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Montology Palimpsest

Part of the book series: Montology ((M,volume 1))

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on UNESCO’s (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage Sites considered as mountain protected areas including for both natural and cultural values. Among the 1154 World Heritage properties (including 897 cultural, 218 natural, 39 mixed) located in 167 countries, 199 sites (about 17.5%) are located in mountain areas with the roughly double percentage for only natural and mixed sites.

Growing awareness about the fragile mountain sites and their protection can be identified especially since the 2002 International Year of the Mountains. In terms of the 1972 World Heritage Convention, a number of mountain protected areas were included as natural sites since the beginning of inscriptions on the World Heritage List in 1978 but only in the 1990s’ culture-nature interrelations, including topics such as sacred mountains which came into the international arena and discussions at the World Heritage Committee.

This chapter also identifies specific threats to World Heritage mountain areas and their conservation and concludes with a way forward, including areas for future management, research and study.

This chapter is dedicated to the mountain communities in World Heritage places and to Jim Thorsell (*1940) and Larry Hamilton (1951–2011) for raising awareness about the fragile mountain world of our planet.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. UNESCO World Heritage Centre (1992–2021) and Chercheur associé, UMR 8504 Géographie-cité, Aubervilliers, France

      Mechtild Rössler

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    1. Mechtild Rössler
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    1. Neotropical Montology Collaboratory, Department of Geography, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

      Fausto O. Sarmiento

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    Rössler, M. (2022). World Heritage and Mountain Sites. In: Sarmiento, F.O. (eds) Montology Palimpsest. Montology, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13298-8_23

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13298-8_23

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    • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

    • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-13297-1

    • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-13298-8

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