Two Chinese sites will seek World Heritage status in 2016

Rock painting at Huashan Mountain in Guangxi province [File photo]

The World Heritage Committee ended its meeting on Wednesday and announced it will hold its next session in Istanbul, Turkey, from July 10-20, 2016. Two Chinese sites will seek World Heritage status at that time.

During this year's session, which opened on June 28, the committee inscribed 24 new sites on UNESCO's World Heritage List and approved extensions to three existing sites. It also added three World Heritage sites to the List of World Heritage in Danger and took one off the list.

There are a total 1,031 World Heritage sites, including 802 Cultural Heritage, 197 Natural Heritage and 32 Dual Inheritance listings.

The committee also launched the global Unite for Heritage Coalition, designed to strengthen mobilization in the face of deliberate damage to cultural heritage, particularly in the Middle East.

In addition, the committee adopted the Bonn Declaration, which recommends that heritage protection be included in the mandate of peacekeeping missions when appropriate. It calls on UNESCO to enhance its international leadership in coordinating the response to the protection of heritage in the event of armed conflict or natural disaster.

China's chieftain heritage sites, mainly concentrated in the mountainous areas of Hunan, Hubei and Guizhou provinces in southeast China, were named as the country's 48th World Heritage listing during the meeting, keeping China as the country with the second largest number of World Heritage sites, only after Italy.

According to the Chinese delegation at the meeting, a rock painting on Huashan Mountain in Guangxi province and Shennongjia Natural Reserve in Hubei province will become the 2016 Chinese candidates for World Heritage recognition.