The 39th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, chaired by the Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office, Prof Maria Böhmer, is currently taking place in Bonn. The Committee is holding talks on the status of a wide number of World Cultural and Natural Heritage Properties and decisions will be taken on new sites to be awarded the UNESCO protected status. Germany has nominated, among others, Hamburg's Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District with the Chilehaus for inclusion in the World Heritage List. A national park in Jamaica and the Great Barrier Reef on the east coast of Australia are also being discussed in the context of world natural heritage. The session will continue until 8 July.
The Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park in Jamaica has good chances of being awarded the coveted UNESCO World Natural Heritage status, making it the first Jamaican site on the list. The Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Chapada dos Veadeiros and Emas National Parks in Cerrado in Brazil will feature prominently in the talks on the protected status of World Heritage Properties and inscription on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
The three World Natural Heritage Properties in Germany; Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and the Ancient Beech Forests of Germany, the Wadden Sea and the Messel Pit Fossil Site, are using this meeting as an opportunity to showcase their successes in conserving the sites to a wide international audience of experts. Approximately 2,000 delegates from all over the world are participating in this Committee meeting.
Germany nominated the Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District with Chilehaus in Hamburg and the Naumburg Cathedral and the Landscape of the Rivers Saale and Unstrut (Saxony-Anhalt) for inclusion in the World Heritage List. In addition, the nomination of the Viking Age Sites in Europe, including sites in Germany, will be debated.