On June 26^th, 2013, at a United Nations supported conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, local and international officials gathered to emphasize the extensive past history of the city of Ghazni as reported by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). This conference is a reminder of the importance of protecting and preserving Afghanistan’s rich cultural history; a country that has experienced conflict and war for many years.

 The conference was organized by the Government of Afghanistan and supported by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was named “Ghazni Through the Course of History”.  Attendees also included the Italian Ambassador to Afghanistan, Luciano Pezzotti, who talked about the major significance of investing to preserve Afghanistan historical sites.  Italy provided funding to UNESCO to build a museum of Islamic arts in Ghazni.  Mr. Pezzoti told the conference that Italy will continue supporting the preservation of the country’s cultural and historical monuments.

Earlier this year in April 2013, a Morocco-based body of Islamic countries created in 1981 to coordinate efforts in the field of education, science and culture – had declared the city as the Asian Capital of Islamic Culture. The move was supported by UNESCO.

Ghazni is located in a province of the same name and about three hours by road from Kabul. Ghazni’s history is believed to date from 1500 BC, and was mentioned by Alexander the Great’s general Ptolemy in his later writing during the Hellenistic era. It was subsequently conquered by the Achaemenid King Cyrus II in the 6th century BC, and then incorporated into the Persian Empire stretching from present day Iran to India. Before the Islamic faith came to the region, sometime in the 9th century, Ghazni was also a center for the Buddhist religion.

The city is also home to a range of cultural and archeological artifacts, including fragments of Buddhist statues and a Hindu shrine from the pre-Islamic period. Key monuments include the Mausoleum of Abd al-Razzaq, the tomb of Mahmud Ghazanvi (a military commander and champion of arts who ruled Ghazni from 998 to 1030), the minarets (or victory towers) of Bahram Shah, built in the 12th century, and the palace of Mas’ud III and Ghazni citadel.

The recent data reported by the India’s ministry of environment and forests and a group of environmentalists, show that the extent of forest land being diverted across India on an average stands at 135 hectares (around 333 acres) per day. It is also reported that these diversions or land allocations are done for a number of reasons including allocations for coal mines, thermal power plants, industrial or river valley projects. Therefore, large areas of forest land are given to public and private agencies in the name of development projects. The states that are currently allocating major forest land to these new projects include Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand as reported by Times of India. Another example is allocation of hundreds of hectares of Amrit Mahal kaval land, categorized as forest land according to Rule 33 of the Karnataka Forest Rules 1969, which have been allegedly diverted to Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Isro and DRDO, which are planning to build sensitive projects here.

It also has been reported that a number of legal cases are in the courts and before the National Green Tribunal. As also reported by Times of India, the ongoing and extensive diversion and allocation of 333 acres a day, to non-forest activity shows the country is sitting on an ecological time bomb. It is very alarming to see this type of deforestation rate and remind these communities that the depletion of these forest lands impacts the climate, biodiversity and water resources.

On June 22^nd, 2013, six more sites were added to the UNESCO’s heritage list.  These sites are located in different corners of the world and include two world first heritage sites for Qatar and Fiji. The sites as announced on the UNESCO.org are:

Fujisan, Sacred Place and Source of Artistic Inspiration (Japan): Fujisan was the center of training for ascetic Buddhism, which included Shinto elements.  Its representation in Japanese art goes back to the 11^th century. University of Coimbra—Alta and Sofia (Portugal): Situated on a hill overlooking the city, the University of Coimbra with its colleges grew and evolved over more than seven centuries within the old town. Historic Center of Agadez (Niger): Agadez is known as the gateway to the desert and is located on the southern edge of the Sahara desert, developed in the 15^th and 16^th centuries when the Sultanate of Aïr was established  and Touareg tribes were sedentarized in the city. The historic center of the city was an important crossroads of the caravan trade. Al Zubarah Archaeological Site (Qatar): The walled coastal town of Al Zubarah in the Gulf flourished as a pearling and trading center in the late 18^th century and early 19^th centuries, before it was destroyed in 1811 and abandoned in the early 1900s. Excavation has only taken place over a small part of the site. Levuka Historical Port Town (Fiji): The town and its low line of buildings set among coconut and mango trees along the beach front was the first colonial capital of Fiji, ceded to the British in 1874. It developed from the early 19th century as a center of commercial activity by Americans and Europeans.  Red Bay Basque Whaling Station (Canada): Red Bay, established by Basque mariners in the 16th century at the north-eastern tip of Canada on the shore of the Strait of Belle Isle is an archaeological site that provides the earliest, most complete and best preserved testimony of the European whaling tradition.

It has been many years of hard work and continued efforts by many conservation groups and activists including Miranda Gibson who became an instant celebrity when she climbed a tree in December 2011 and vowed not to come down until the threatened forest was protected.  On June 24, 2013, the UN World Heritage Committee officially approved the extension of the state’s forest into its World Heritage List, therefore protecting 170,000 hectares of forests.

The decision was passed in a meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, when the 21-nation committee unanimously accepted the nomination. In fact, the committee members from Germany, Malaysia, India, Serbia, Albania and Estonia all spoke in strong support of the decision as reported by Asiancorrespondent.com.

The UN’s decision means thousands of hectares of contiguous tall eucalyptus wild forests, endangered species habitat, wild rivers and ancient karst systems are finally protected and recognized as UN heritage sites and therefore offering protection for  outstanding forests such as Styx, Weld and Upper Florentine Valley.

The outcome is greatly acknowledged to be also because of the work done by the Australian and Tasmanian Governments and the signatories to the Tasmanian Forest Agreement.

UNESCO in it’s 37 annual session, bestowed the status of “Outstanding Universal Value” on 5 natural sites and 14 cultural locations.  Included is Japan’s Mount Fuji and Italy’s Mount Etna, the Forts of Rajasthan in India, and the Namib Sand Sea in southern Africa.

Also joining the list were the Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany, Tehran’s Golestan Palace, the Wooden Tserkvas (some of the oldest Greek churches of the area) of the Carpathian region of Poland and Ukraine. 

The UNESCO World Heritage Comittee annually selects sites based on the following criteria:

● To contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance;

● To be outstanding examples representing major stages of Earth’s history, including the record of life, significant ongoing geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features;

● To be outstanding examples representing significant ongoing ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, freshwater, coastal, and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals;

● To contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.

The UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has decided to add the Ancient City of Tauric Chersonesos and its Chora to the World Heritage List.

The Ancient City of Tauric Chersonese and its Chora is the 7th property of Ukraine, which was inscribed on the prestigious list.  The city was established by Greeks over 2500 years ago.  It has been nicknamed the “Russian Troy” after excavations in 1827 unearthed the ancient city.

“ICOMOS considers that Tauric Chersonese is an exceptional example of an archaeological landscape which combines the archaeological site of a Greek peripheral polis and its extended chora and that this claim to Outstanding Universal Value is justified,” the document said.