The committee will visit Garamba later this year to evaluate the situation there. In the meantime the Congolese were asked to relocate a number of the rhinos to Kenya for their safety.
Everest in Danger?
Also at this week's meeting, environmental groups asked that Mount Everest—the tallest peak in the world—be placed on the committee's List of World Heritage in Danger.
The Everest advocates, led by Pro Public/Friends of the Earth Nepal, argued that runoff from melting glaciers, caused by a change in climate, has swollen Himalayan lakes, increasing the risk of catastrophic flooding.
Environmental groups also called for coral reefs in Belize and glaciers in Peru to be added to the danger list because of climate changes caused by greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized countries.
Instead, the World Heritage Committee decided to form a yearlong task force to study the threat posed by climate change to all World Heritage sites—including Nepal's Sagarmatha National Park, where Mount Everest dominates the landscape.
Prakash Sharma, executive director of Pro Public, said waiting to take action on Everest could be a big mistake.
"The problems created by climate change in the park are immense," he said. "Large glacial lakes are forming which could burst at any moment, destroying the lives and livelihoods of local people."
About 30 places are currently on the danger list and face threats from mining and pollution to war and poaching, according to the committee.
The aim of the danger list is to raise awareness of threats to World Heritage sites and seek international support to mitigate the problems. Before the meeting, Sir Edmund Hillary—the Briton who in 1953 joined the Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in the first successful summiting of Everest—supported efforts to put the mountain on the danger list.
"The warming of the environment of the Himalayas has increased noticeably over the last 50 years," Hilary said in a statement.
While no new places were added to the danger list, the committee did remove three sites, citing progress in their conservation: Sangay National Park, Ecuador; the city of Timbuktu, Mali; and the Butrint archaeological site in Albania.
Free E-Mail News Updates
Sign up for our Inside National Geographic newsletter. Every two weeks we'll send you our top stories and pictures (see sample).
|
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES
|
